


Other Vengeance chapter four: This Most Bloody Piece Of Work

by WaywardInsecticon



Series: Other Vengeance [6]
Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Dead OC, Faction Truce, Gen, Transformers as Humans, not violence but a fairly devastating accident, we handed out sexes by beast-mode in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 03:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15185561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaywardInsecticon/pseuds/WaywardInsecticon
Summary: Seven days after the change. Dinobot finds himself in charge of a murder investigation.





	1. Chapter 1

The rain had started three days ago and showed no signs of letting up. Cheetor had gotten tired of it within an hour.

Optimus was in the command centre, up to his elbows in some project. Rhinox was busy going over Tarantulas' research in his room. Dinobot was on monitor duty - technically it was Optimus' shift but Dinobot was tired of holing up in his room and wanted something to do that didn't involve getting rained on. Quickstrike and Silverbolt were still sick and Airazor was looking after them because Tigatron had decided to brave the rain. Cheetor didn't know where Rattrap was except on the _Axalon_ somewhere, so he set out to look for him. Hopefully Rattrap wouldn't mind company. If he did, Cheetor wasn't sure what to do. There were Predacons around but he wasn't sure that he wanted to hang around with one, no matter how bored he was.

He thought the cargo bay was as good a place to start looking as any. As it turned out, there were people there, just no one he wanted to see. Megatron and Scorponok were a short distance into the room, their backs to him and talking quietly. There were a few tools and chunks of metal sheeting near Scorponok's feet and some crates had been moved. This wasn't unusual or even particularly threatening. The cargo bay wasn't off-limits to the Predacons.

Then Cheetor realised they were looking down into a hole in the floor. _Well, they probably shouldn't be taking the place apart._ "Hey! What are you two doing?"

Megatron glanced back. "Did you know you have a corpse under the deck plates?"

"... What?"

 

**Other Vengeance 2.0  
This Most Bloody Piece Of Work  
( part one )**  
 

It would simultaneously annoy the Maximals and make them feel the Predacons were resigned to the truce, which meant it was Megatron's idea. Another Predacon might have complained about the work. Scorponok didn't. He liked working.

Scorponok was in the _Axalon's_ cargo bay. He'd had to move a few crates to get at the spot he wanted, a quarter of the way in from the main door. He took up the bolts that held the deck plate, stuck a wedge in the crack, then stepped back to let the loader drone lift the metal sheet. This was a specialised device, built for the room. The _Axalon's_ other two loader drones were something like barrel-shaped forklifts on treads. The one in the cargo bay was more like a ladder crossed with a forklift and a winch besides. It was on treads and stabilised by six legs - four on the bottom and two on the top to grip the ceiling. It bothered Scorponok that he had to use the drone. The deck plates in here weighed about the same as he did now and he'd always been able to lift several times his own weight before.

Deck plate removed and drone out of the way, Scorponok lay on his front to reach down and unfasten the lower plate that would give him access to the level below. His arms were too short to reach but the impact wrench would give him just enough range ... then he noticed the hand.

Scorponok yelped and scrambled back, nearly falling over in his haste. _Maximal still metal! Very bad!_ He grabbed up a cutting torch, took a defensive position, and realised he wasn't being pursued.

The technician edged back to the hole in the deck, his teeth chattering nervously. The hand hadn't so much as twitched.

He prodded at it with the tip of his torch, then burned a small hole in one of the fingers. When it didn't move, he got up and removed two more deck plates to get a better look. This uncovered the left arm, the head, and part of the upper body of a dead Maximal.

Scorponok crouched down to inspect the body shell. It was lying on its back. Tires on the arms, so some kind of ground-alt. Off-road type, he would guess. There was a Maximal sigil stamped on the forearm. Light blue and tan paint. A few shards of glass left in the shattered optics. Scorponok lay down on his front so he could reach down and touch the shell. His fingers recognised shell-grade plating but detected no energy fields - all metal felt dead to his organic senses, anyway. The broken optics were the only damage he could see.

He propped himself up on his elbows, chin in hand. Scorponok briefly considered alerting Optimus since it was his problem but programming and habit took over and he used the _Axalon's_ intercom to call Megatron.

Megatron arrived a few minutes later and frowned thoughtfully at the corpse. "Interesting."

"What do you think happened?" asked Scorponok, standing beside him and fiddling with his gloves. He wore them only to keep him from picking at the blisters on the backs of his hands. The gloves had no fingertips - like the rest of the Cybertronians, Scorponok didn't like to damp his tactile sensitivity more than he had to.

"Hm. A stowaway perhaps," said Megatron. "A strange hiding place, though."

"Yeah, but either too good or no good. No beast-mode either."

"Then he may have died before the ship even launched. Unless he was able to damp his energy signature, the Maximals would have noticed him." Megatron tapped a claw-toed boot on the edge of the hole. "If he was still alive after the ship crashed, he could have died of energon surges when we stole the _Axalon's_ rectifier coil."

Scorponok shook his head. "I'd expect to see burn marks if he surged to death."

"He died before the change, certainly."

Attention absorbed by the corpse, they didn't hear that the door had opened or that Cheetor had come up behind them until he spoke: "Hey! What are you two doing?"

Megatron looked over his shoulder at the Maximal. "Did you know you have a corpse under the deck plates?"

Cheetor's mouth dropped open. "... What?"

"Some Maximal ground vehicle," said Megatron, casually stepping aside to let Cheetor see. "No one I recognise. If you'll give us a hand moving him, perhaps we can ..."

Scorponok doubted Cheetor could see much from where he stood. Apparently it was enough because the Maximal turned and bolted. Megatron made a derisive noise. "He'll be back with reinforcements soon enough. Enjoy the quiet while you can."

They managed to remove another deck plate before there were running feet and shouting. " _Megatron! What the slag did you do?_ "

Megatron sighed and looked up from where he was kneeling. Cheetor had brought Optimus and Dinobot with him. "Hello to you too, Primal. Scorponok found a stowaway. I'm helping get him out."

"Back off," Optimus ordered, more harshly than Scorponok thought they deserved. After all, the Predacons had only found the corpse. Megatron shrugged, so they retreated several steps to give the Maximals space.

The first problem was that both the shell's legs and one arm had been secured to pipes with cable. A pair of heavy metal snips took care of the bonds. Optimus took the body shell by the arm and pulled but in the end it took all three Maximals to wrestle it into a seated position. Now Scorponok could see the back of its head. There was a small hole burned there.

Megatron smiled. "Well, well. The exploded stasis pod was one thing, but _this_ ... Murder on a Maximal science vessel. This _is_ getting interesting, yes."

Optimus glared at him. "Would you just go _away_? This is Maximal business."

"Scorponok found him, therefore it is our business as well," said Megatron. "Besides, we Predacons are the only ones who can't _possibly_ have had anything to do with his death."

"You sound certain," said Dinobot.

Megatron rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't start. I'd never had the slightest interest in the _Axalon_ until it started shooting at us and you know it. Not every dead Maximal is my work."

"Well, if you're so determined to help, you can help us move him," said Optimus sharply.

Scorponok glanced over at his leader but Megatron was too curious and in too good a mood to complain about being ordered around by Maximals. Which was lucky for the Maximals since it took all five of them and the loader drone to get the corpse out of the crawlspace and onto the floor - the legs had been carefully wedged between a couple of pipes and couldn't just be yanked out by brute force without damaging the ship.

"Oof! Are we taking him to the repair bay?" asked Cheetor.

"He's a bit past needing that," said Megatron. The muscles in Optimus' arms tightened as if he would have taken a swing at Megatron if his hands hadn't been full.

In the end they pushed three crates together and set some sheet metal on top for a makeshift table, then laid the corpse out on it. The Maximal leader turned to the two Predacons. "We'll take it from here. It's our problem, not yours."

"I suppose curiosity and entertainment value don't count for much around here," sighed Megatron, "but I haven't lived this long by ignoring Maximal dagger-in-the-dark shenanigans, no."

"If I promise to keep you informed will you just go away?" asked Optimus, exasperated.

Megatron considered that for a moment. "Yes. Say it."

Optimus sighed. "Fine. I promise to keep you informed. You and Scorponok go find something to do somewhere el ..." Something seemed to finally dawn on Optimus. " _Why_ were you ripping up the floor?"

Scorponok shrugged. "I was putting in pipes."

"... Why?"

"To move water."

" _Why?_ "

"I'm renovating my quarters," said Megatron casually. "Knocking out a wall, adding a bath, getting the room up to my basic standards. Unless you have some objection, Optimus Primal ..."

Optimus slumped. "Just go."

The Predacons left. Megatron waited until the cargo bay door closed behind them before laughing. "Well. At least he's too preoccupied with this little intrigue to care what we're doing to his ship."

 

* * *

 

"Good news, Inferno," Megatron announced. "You and Scorponok can be as loud as you like."

Inferno, seated on the berth in the quarters she shared with Megatron, set aside the datapad with the blueprints Scorponok had come up with and smiled, flashing even, white teeth. She wasn't the most mechanically inclined Predacon but she could follow simple diagrams easily enough. The rest of the berth was covered in various tools - neither of them actually used it for sleeping. "Finally." Trapped inside by the rain, unable to vent her violent impulses on the local wildlife, Inferno longed for destruction.

Megatron chuckled. "Be not too overzealous, no - we still must live here after all."

"Also, that wall's got two power cables running through it," said Scorponok. "Cut one and you'll electrocute yourself."

The warrior nodded. Another might have automatically protested that they'd taken worse damage but Inferno seemed to have an innate understanding of her body's limitations. _One advantage to operating at such a basic level,_ thought Megatron. _Her mind may be confusion but she adapts to new bodies easily._

Scorponok could fill Inferno in on the morning's events. Megatron left his minions to their work and stepped out into the hall. The quarters to his right were empty. In theory they were Inferno's, but she insisted on staying with her leader, so the room was going to be added to Megatron's. The quarters to his left were used by Scorponok, and were where Megatron had been working before he was interrupted by the dead Maximal. _Which I will_ have _to find some use for. Watching the Maximals get upset is amusing at least. Though it reflects badly on us that we Predacons had nothing to do with either dead Maximal on this planet._

Megatron and Inferno had moved their few belongings into Scorponok's quarters for now, to keep them out of the way of the work. It made the room extremely crowded with the extra packing foam sheets rolled up and leaning in a corner and Megatron's oversized chair in the middle of the room, but such things were temporary and even rather nostalgic. The Alien Disc was propped up on Scorponok's berth. Beside it was the device that Inferno had found under the Standing Stones.

There was a table, which only made things tighter. Scorponok had made it or dragged it in from somewhere but Megatron couldn't use it. It was covered with small tools, scrap materials, a personal computer, and the cyberbee Megatron had brought back from the Predacons' ship. The cyberbee's head was open and a few wires trailed out into Scorponok's computer. Like Megatron's personal computer it was a self-contained unit not tied in with the _Axalon's_ mainframe. Lacking a transmitter, no longer able to command his cyberbees with a thought, Scorponok was trying to come up with a new control mechanism. Megatron inspected the cyberbee without touching it, resisting the urge to tinker. Cyberbees weren't just drones, they were pieces of Scorponok, and Megatron respected him enough not to meddle in that.

His cheek itched and he tried to ignore it. The blisters on his face were drying up, and where the damaged skin flaked away, there was new skin underneath it. He picked up the alien sphere to keep his hands occupied.

Megatron sat in his chair, turning the alien sphere over in his hands like a puzzle box. Scans had been useless. The gold band looping around the device was the same type of unknown metal as the Disc and the blue sphere was a different kind of unknown metal. He wasn't even sure if the sphere was solid or hollow. There were symbols etched into the band but they were not the same as those on the Disc. They weren't even similar types of symbols. It was maddening.

He looked up at the Disc. The symbols changed again as he watched. Megatron sighed. Five spaces on the Disc, each space cycling through three symbols at random intervals. Each symbol represented a place or a thing - four he was sure of, two he thought he knew, and the other nine were complete mysteries.

A tortured scream of tearing metal and Inferno's triumphant laugh came from his room, muffled by the wall. Megatron smiled faintly and shook his head. _At least_ someone's _having fun._

 

* * *

 

Dinobot circled the prone body on the makeshift table, then prodded at the wound in its head. "You know him," he said, "but why warn Cheetor not to admit so in front of Megatron?"

"Because I don't know what happened and I don't need to give Megatron another reason to laugh," said Optimus. The anger in him had left with Megatron. Intruder gone, now among friends, Optimus no longer had to pretend strength. Shoulders slumped, he stood beside the table, patting the shell's forearm like it was the corpse who needed comforting. Optimus had sent Cheetor off to run monitor duty and fill in Tigatron and Airazor on the situation, then called Rattrap and Rhinox down to the cargo bay.

"Hm." Dinobot brushed carbon dust off his fingers. "My first thought was that his death must have occurred long before you took command of the _Axalon_ , perhaps early in its construction, but I take it that wasn't the case."

"His name was Crossbolt," said Optimus heavily. "He was supposed to be part of our crew. Rattrap was his replacement."

"Yeah, he vanished and the _Axalon_ was ready to go, so I was dragged in at the last minute," said Rattrap.

Dinobot raised an eyebrow. "Why you?"

"'Cause I knew Rhinox."

Rhinox nodded. "They didn't want to stick us with an unknown at the last minute. Not on a long-term mission."

"So now we know what happened to you," said Optimus, squeezing the shell's hand. "Dinobot, I want you to find out what you can about his death. I know there's not much to go on ..."

"What?" Rattrap jabbed a finger at Dinobot. "This sorta thing is _my_ kinda job! Why are you handin' it to this fender-headed, stinking ..."

"Predacon?" Dinobot asked sharply, and while Rattrap withdrew his hand, he didn't back down. "Because I can be objective - I do not know this person. I have no stake in this and I wasn't anywhere near the _Axalon_ when he died."

"Oh, right, _you_ were off stealin' the Golden Disc and killin' people."

"But not _this_ person."

"Megatron would believe that anyone else was biased in their conclusions," said Optimus.

Rattrap snorted. "Who cares what he thinks?"

" _You're_ not the one he's going to be acting smug at. If Megatron is satisfied with what he hears, he won't try to find his own answers." Optimus suddenly glanced over at Dinobot. "I mean, I'd rather have him renovating his quarters than trying to hack Sentinel."

"Megatron will keep pushing to see how far he can go," Dinobot warned.

"I'll push back when it's important," said Optimus. "A bath isn't."

"It is to Megatron."

Rhinox touched Optimus on the shoulder. "If you need anything ..."

Optimus reached up and patted his hand. "Get back to work on trying to fix Quickstrike and Silverbolt." The engineer nodded and left. Rattrap shot one last glare at Dinobot before slipping away.

Dinobot looked back at the body shell. "Who was he, Optimus?"

It was several moments before Optimus spoke. "Crossbolt was a close friend of mine. Rhinox knew him, but only casually. Cheetor only met him once or twice. He was a trader between Cybertron and some of the colonies. He thought an exploration mission would be an interesting change of pace. Until now, I'd always thought he'd just backed out."

"I had not heard this before."

"No." No explanation but the tone was enough. _I thought my friend had abandoned me. It hurt me to speak of him, so we never spoke of him._ "We realised he was missing about three megacycles before take-off. When we couldn't find him, we thought that meant he didn't want to be found, so Rattrap was called in. We loaded the last of the cargo and left three megacycles late."

Dinobot frowned. "You didn't search long."

"There was no evidence of foul play and we were on a schedule," said Optimus. "Crossbolt was in the habit of leaving without telling anyone, anyway. It's not uncommon for people to have second thoughts and drop out of long-term missions. It's why we can call on replacements at short notice." He slumped, resting his elbows on the makeshift table. "The last thing he said to me was, 'Hey, you want I should start getting the stasis hold ready?' I told him yes. That was it - five nanoclicks and he was gone again."

"You could not know what was to happen."

"I know." Optimus groaned and shook his head. "I suppose I have to tell Megatron that I've put you in charge of the investigation."

"I will inform Megatron. Do not concern yourself for me." _Best that I make myself Megatron's target. In your current condition, I don't think you can handle him._

Optimus left Dinobot alone in the cargo bay with the corpse. He pensively tapped his fingers by the wound. _Investigation was never my function, but I have my orders ..._

 

* * *

 

He had woken shaking and sweating from a nightmare into a small, windowless room in the enemy base and he was _still_ a soft, organic thing. After a beginning like that, Terrorsaur was amazed to find that his day could in fact get worse.

It was still raining. He could hear it drumming on the hull. There was to be no respite from the confines of the _Axalon_. He'd gone to find Waspinator in her room, hoping that friendly company would calm him.

The flyers were sitting on Waspinator's berth, cross-legged so they could face each other, concentrating on each other and on their cards. Terrorsaur didn't know where Waspinator had found them, especially not a Predacon deck on this Maximal ship. He couldn't see her asking a Maximal for anything, even something as simple as a deck of cards. Most of the deck and a few discards were stacked neatly between them. They were both good players. That wasn't what they were practicing.

Waspinator suddenly tossed her cards down in frustration. "Terror-bot is lacking bits! Waspinator can't read him!"

"We'll need to come up with some alternate signals," agreed Terrorsaur, gathering up the hexagonal cards and shuffling them again.

"Waspinator can't concentrate. Waspinator is hungry."

Which was when things went worse. Waspinator was friendly company, sure, but no amount of demands, threats, or asking nice would make her shut up about the crocodile.

It was because of Waspinator that no one had to go out in the rain to get more supplies. The problem was that Waspinator liked to remind everyone of it at every opportunity. It didn't help that the story got longer and less accurate with every retelling.

_I don't_ have _to go with her,_ Terrorsaur thought, following Waspinator into the refuelling centre. _Except I'm also hungry and I hate the feeling._ That and he didn't like being alone in the _Axalon_. Truce or not, he liked having Waspinator there to watch his back.

"... Then big water lizard knocked terror-bot over and terror-bot screamed," Waspinator prattled, reaching into the decontamination chamber to carve off a chunk of crocodile. "So Waspinator tackled water lizard and wrestled it to the ground ..."

_I wonder if anyone would notice if I killed her._ He _sometimes_ liked having Waspinator there, he amended. Terrorsaur found a sprayer of cleaning chemicals and misted the table, careful not to get any on his hands. Inferno still had a red mark on the back of one hand where she'd been splashed.

The chemicals evaporated within seconds, taking any dirt with them. Waspinator dropped the meat straight on the table and cut off a bite-size piece. "... And Waspinator forced water lizard's mouth open and shot right down ..."

_They'll notice because it's suddenly quiet. I wonder if they'll thank me._ He pulled one of his three knives and started cutting off pieces for himself. "Shut up. You're driving me crazy."

"Jealous!"

"Waspinator," said Terrorsaur as evenly as he could manage through clenched teeth, "I've been stuck inside for two days. If I have a breakdown, I'm _taking you with me_."

"Oh." Had she still been a wasp, her wings would have buzzed contritely. Lacking those appendages, Waspinator simply focused on picking apart her food. Suddenly, "Maybe terror-bot should sit in a storage locker for a while."

"You have five nanoclicks to make sense before I hit you."

Waspinator looked offended. "If terror-bot is in a tiny place, when he comes out, rest of ship will seem big."

"That has got to be the dumbest thing I've ever -"

The door opened and Terrorsaur's mouth snapped shut out of 'we don't talk in front of the Maximals' habit. Airazor hesitated only an instant before walking in, a little more stiffly than usual. _Now,_ wondered Terrorsaur, _is it just because we're Predacons or specifically because we're us?_

If Airazor wasn't his least-favourite Maximal, she was certainly in the top two. It wasn't because she'd utterly shredded him two minutes out of her pod. That was bad but Terrorsaur didn't hold grudges for wounds inflicted in battle. It was that she was a Maximal who took up his airspace. He never felt Optimus counted with his jetpack and lack of a flight-alt, but Airazor was up in his sky like she owned the place.

"If you're looking for fruit there's none left," said Terrorsaur unnecessarily as Airazor checked the bin, trying to get her to leave faster. "Lots of crocodile, though," he added, glaring at his partner.

Waspinator, on the other hand, held grudges against anyone who'd ever taken a shot at her, but she also had a very short attention span. "Waspinator killed it!" she crowed happily. "Waspinator is still the best Predacon! Ahem ..." To Terrorsaur's dismay, she started singing. " _Waspinator is wonderful! As everyone knows! She kept big lizard from biting terror-bot's toes! Waspinator is amazing! As all can see! She kept big lizard from biting terror-bot's knees! Waspinator is stupendous! As all are aware! ..._ "

_I will kill her. I will feed her to her smelt-spawned crocodile. Then I will kill the crocodile._ Terrorsaur glanced over at Airazor, who was by the decontamination chamber with her back to them, seemingly entirely focused on cutting small bits of meat, except that her shoulders were shaking slightly. _And you can join her, Maximal!_

" _Waspinator is ..._ is ... Terror-bot, help Waspinator spell."

For the first time that day, Terrorsaur smiled.

 

* * *

 

Airazor retreated from the refuelling centre before she broke down laughing. She knew if she did at least one of the Predacons would take offence and then she'd have to deal with both of them. She had what she came for - two small containers of bite-sized bits of meat. She would go find her own fuel later, preferably after the Predacon flyers had left.

Quickstrike and Silverbolt had spent most of their short lives together. Their pods had come down in the same place, they stuck together in the wasteland, and they could usually both be found with either Rattrap or Dinobot, learning about Cybertron and disbelieving every word of it. They'd started malfunctioning at the same time. Sure they bickered and snapped at each other but they were just always _together_.

It came as a surprise to some people that they honestly couldn't stand each other.

The neophytes flat-out refused to wait around in the xenobiology lab, not because it was boring but because they wanted to be out of one another's company.

_And sick animals hide,_ thought Airazor, pressing the chime on Quickstrike's door. It was something Tigatron had said once, soon after Airazor had come online. They were on a scouting patrol together and had happened across an antelope that was too weak too move. Tigatron had said it then, a bit surprised: _"Sick animals hide."_

_"Why?"_

_"To show weakness in the wild means death."_

_Well, we're not animals,_ thought Airazor. _If one of our own is malfunctioning, we look after him, we repair him. We won't eat him. Though I wouldn't put trying past some of the Preds ..._

Quickstrike unlocked the door with a voice command and Airazor went in. He had been curled up, but he stretched out and propped himself up on one elbow when she entered. According to Tigatron, he spent most of his time sleeping. Quickstrike's body seemed to think it would heal faster in stasis and kept him unconscious as much as it could. "Just couldn't resist me or are you fillin' in for stripes today?"

"Tigatron's out. I told her I'd check in on you," said Airazor. This just involved looking in on Quickstrike and Silverbolt, making sure their conditions hadn't worsened, making sure they stayed hydrated and ate occasionally, and keeping them company so they wouldn't go stir-crazy.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Ain't it kinda wet outside?"

"She doesn't mind the rain."

Quickstrike looked awful. His skin had gone paler than hers, his hair was a worse mess than usual, and it was obvious he'd been wearing the same clothes for the last four days, unable to summon the energy to clean up and get changed. Unusually, he was wearing his sleeves long - he tended to have them rolled up to his elbows. He hadn't shaved either and now had a short beard. The only one who could make facial hair look good was Rhinox, Airazor decided. It just made the others who had it look scruffy. Quickstrike was the only one of those who didn't mind it - even Rattrap shaved occasionally, disliking the feel of fur around his mouth.

Airazor held up one of the small containers. "I brought food if you feel like eating."

The blond groaned and slumped so he could cover his head with his hands. "What's the point, sugar? It all just comes out again one way or the other."

She couldn't blame him not wanting to go through with it. Quickstrike's body seemed determined to reject any fuel he put into it. Even if he managed not to vomit, defecation was inevitable. Most of them just considered it a minor nuisance. For the neophytes it was painful and bloody. On the other hand, if he didn't refuel at all, his body wouldn't have the energy or material to try to repair itself. Airazor set down one of the containers on the shelf nearest the berth. "I'll leave it for you if change your mind."

Quickstrike peered out from under his arm. "Ain't my mind that's the problem, sugar."

Airazor left Quickstrike to sleep and went to the next corridor to see how Silverbolt was doing.

Silverbolt was drawn and pale but in better condition than Quickstrike. Where Quickstrike completely let himself go, Silverbolt kept his hair brushed and his clothing neat. The latter was mostly hidden at the moment since Silverbolt was sitting on his berth with his feathered cloak over his shoulders and pulled around his body. He set his datapad aside - he hadn't had the chance to get a proper computer for himself yet - and managed a smile. "Airazor."

"Hey, 'Bolt." She winced at a crash and a string of curses from the next room - nobody could swear like a Predacon technician. The noise of Megatron's renovations had been barely audible from Quickstrike's room but Silverbolt's was right next to Inferno's. "Are you sure you want to stay here while the Predacons are banging around? I know there are extra rooms."

"I will stay. I do not mind the noise." Silverbolt shrugged, ruffling his feathers. "I find I prefer it, actually. If I cannot participate in the life of the _Axalon_ , I will at least hear it."

"Your choice, but if you get fed up with it, let me know, okay?" Then, remembering her original reason for being there, Airazor held up the container. "Do you feel up to eating?"

"Not really." But he had a faint smile that said he was willing to try for her sake.

Airazor handed him the small container and picked up the datapad so she could sit next to him. The text on the screen caught her by surprise. "You're reading the colony environmental regulations manual for fun?"

Silverbolt picked at the crocodile meat with his fingers, looking for the smallest piece. "I am told that I am a Maximal. I requested the manuals so I could learn how I should act." He gave the meat a careful sniff before putting it in his mouth.

_I guess there's worse ways._ "Anyone else been checking in on you?"

He finished chewing and swallowed before he answered. "Yes. Optimus Primal. Rhinox. Tigatron. However, Rattrap is the only one who visits for the sake of visiting."

"Rattrap? Really?" Rattrap was sociable but making calls on glitching neophytes was more altruistic than Airazor expected from him.

Silverbolt nodded. "He makes off-colour jokes but he stays to talk and answer questions and he brings me new datadiscs. I do appreciate him."

She debated telling him about the corpse in the floor and decided against it. The neophytes had enough problems without needing to worry about anyone else's. Let them concentrate on healing.

 

* * *

 

Small alien sphere in hand, Megatron went up to the materials lab. He wanted to see if he could open it. He also wanted to get away from the noise of the renovations for a while.

He had been content to ignore the aliens before this. They were just another unusual feature of an already unusual planet. They could be dangerous but they could also be avoided. Then they decided to be proactive and forcibly change his species. Megatron had immediately shifted his policy of 'avoid the aliens' to 'hunt the aliens down and force them to give his metal back.'

Blackarachnia was there. Megatron briefly wondered if she ever left the room, though he could admit she had little reason to do so. Here were tools and supplies enough to keep her occupied. She was sitting on the floor with her back to him and hoverpad parts spread out around her. She didn't look up when the door opened. "For the last time, I'm not putting booby-traps in anything!"

"Why not?"

The technician jumped and looked back. "Because Maximals keep dropping in and checking on me," she complained, turning to look at him. "When I'm done, I'm going to strap a big, obvious bomb to this thing. It'll make them happy."

Megatron walked over and tapped the thin handrail on the nearest hoverpad, another new feature. "And distract them from the real trap?"

"Oh, no. They'd never fall for that. Anyway, we _are_ supposed to be helpful to our hosts," said Blackarachnia innocently. "Besides, between the rhino and the rat, they'd catch anything I did. If I need to sabotage something, I'll do it later, after they've checked everything over."

Megatron smiled. "Good. How _is_ your work coming?"

"The ape let me use the ship's transmitter to find which of our jamming towers are still up - there's six within range at least. Scorponok and I plan on reprogramming them into signal boosters for the commlinks. As for the commlinks, the tiger's borrowed one of them. I've done as much as I can on them for now," said Blackarachnia. She tapped her pliers on the edge of the hoverpad. "Though these should help with the range testing. Of course, I can't test these either until it stops raining - I don't want to risk water getting in and shorting out the works."

"You might not need to worry about Maximals dropping in so much now. They're a bit preoccupied," said Megatron, then quickly filled her in on the morning's events.

One of Blackarachnia's eyebrows vanished under her bangs. "And here I thought Maximals had such dull lives."

"It's probably nothing we need to worry about since it has nothing to do with us," said Megatron, idly toying with the alien sphere. "Still, best if the news is passed around. You wouldn't want to go into the cargo bay and be left wondering why there was a dead Maximal in there, I'm certain."

Blackarachnia smirked. " _You're_ wondering."

"I saw the look on Primal's face when he saw the corpse. There's more going on than the Maximals are admitting to," said Megatron. "Though they don't know what happened. Dinobot of all people claims that he's looking into the matter. I will deal with him later."

Megatron set the alien sphere on the table and went to see what tools were available. He knew the gold band was the next best thing to indestructible, but possibly he could cut through the dark blue metal to see what was inside. The glass insets showed him nothing, even when he tried shining a light into them. When he returned to the table with a cutting torch, Blackarachnia was peering at the sphere. He nudged her aside. "Did you see one like it in the Monument?"

"No. That all looked like machinery. This looks like an abstract sculpture," said Blackarachnia. Where Terrorsaur refused to talk about the times that he'd tried to take over the Predacons, Blackarachnia had no such recalcitrance. She failed, she was punished, she moved on.

"I would like to inspect the wreckage of the flying island. If it ever stops raining," said Megatron, clamping the alien sphere in a vice.

"I can't say I'm eager to go back."

The torch worked. Megatron cut out a small triangle, which fell into the sphere. He fished it out with a pair of long-nosed pliers.

The alien sphere was hollow and full of wires. Something like wires. They were very brittle - many had broken already and they crumbled on contact. The ones that the heat of the torch had touched had burned away like fine mesh.

He frowned. _It's clearly metallic yet it makes me think of plants._ It led to the odd thought that the sphere had been planted and the Standing Stones had grown organically from it rather than been constructed. _The alien structure that spoke to Primal, that was organic or something like it, at least in part. On the other hand, from all accounts the Obelisk was built and I'm quite certain the Standing Stones were as well. Why is there no_ pattern _?_

 


	2. Chapter 2

The wound was at a downward angle. The assassin was either very tall or hovering - Crossbolt was as big as Optimus had been as a robot.

The realisation startled Dinobot. _I'm used to Optimus being smaller than me yet this person is his true size._

Dinobot removed the burned panel. The metal was textured - etchings made a grid pattern all over Crossbolt's helm. The motif was echoed on his arm and leg panels. _Foolish. Etchings weaken the metal._ Some people thought aesthetics were more important than practicality.

The shot had gone clean through the processor. A low-level laser blast then, enough to destroy the processor and shatter the optics, but not enough to come out the other side.

He turned the head to the side so that he could see the face. It held no particular emotion - no surprise, no pain, no fear of death. Crossbolt must have died so quickly he never noticed he'd been shot. The neutral expression only enhanced the horror of the dark optics with ragged glass still clinging to their frames. _'Thou hast no speculation in those eyes which thou dost glare with!' Another may find you frightening but I am used to the various manifestations of death._

Dinobot stood back, frowning at the body, his mind on decoration over function, which was why he noticed it. In a well-designed Cybertronian body all parts were functional. Even on someone as vain as Terrorsaur there was no extraneous metal. But there were pieces on Crossbolt that looked like they were supposed to be there, only Dinobot couldn't see how they fit or what use they would be.

There was a semi-cylindrical raised section on the corpse's forearm. He levered a wedge into the seam where the raised section attached and pried it open. It was more difficult than he expected, even remembering his decreased strength - the etched plates had reinforcing panels behind them. On the inside, Dinobot could see that the raised bit on the body's inner arm wasn't a random detail, it was a casing to hide a wrist canon. Dinobot prodded at the assembly with the wedge, trying to find the control to open the outer casing ...

_Snap!_

Something inside the corpse's arm bit off the end of the wedge. Dinobot regarded the sheared end of the tool. _Had I been using my fingers, I would have none now. It seems Crossbolt booby-trapped himself. If all these useless-seeming pieces hide weapons, he's very well-armed. Hnn. I approve of your choice of friends, Optimus._

_But this means little._ It made sense for a person who spent most of his life hauling cargo alone on the spaceways to be well-armed but not advertise it. At least it made Maximal-sense, preferring to be seen as friends and not conquerors while still able to defend themselves.

Dinobot sighed. _Were he anyone but someone meant to be in the_ Axalon's _crew, I would say that anyone might have killed him anywhere then simply stowed him on the ship as a way to dispose of the body. It isn't as if it was a secret that the_ Axalon _was going on a long-range mission._

 

* * *

 

When the door opened, Rhinox barely glanced back. One other person knew the code to his quarters and he couldn't see why anyone else would bother trying to hack it.

Rattrap came in without a word, then climbed up on the berth to sit cross-legged with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. When he didn't say anything, Rhinox continued reading his computer screen. Tarantulas had sent him a lot of scan data and he didn't understand any of it despite his best efforts - he was a botanist, not a biologist. However, he didn't like the thought of the care of the neophytes being solely in the Predacon scientist's hands so he tried to make sense of it.

After ten minutes, Rattrap still hadn't spoken. Rhinox didn't find the silence uncomfortable but glanced back anyway. "What are you thinking?"

Rattrap laughed, a bit nervously. "Oh, nothin'. Buncha mushy friendship stuff you don't wanna hear."

"I might."

"Trust me, you don't," said Rattrap with mock severity, hopping down from the berth. He paused long enough to hug Rhinox tightly, then retreated.

Rattrap had always been demonstrative with his emotions, but that hug had felt surprisingly vulnerable. Under the circumstances, Rhinox could understand it. _If that had been you under the deck plates, I'd be as badly off as Optimus._

 

* * *

 

The _Axalon_ had imperfect soundproofing. If someone was shouting it could be heard in the next room or in the hallway outside. Certainly the noise of the renovations to his quarters could be heard in the main hallway. Megatron glanced over - he was outside Waspinator's room, and she and Terrorsaur were yelling at each other loud enough to be heard over the construction down the hall.

Megatron sighed and kept walking. If Terrorsaur or Waspinator was upset it was one's default action to run to the other. When they got mad at each other they'd split up for several hours to cool off. However, the stress of being trapped inside the enemy base was causing them to stick together even when they were angry with each other.

The Predacon commander dropped off what was left of the alien sphere in Scorponok's room, then backtracked and pressed the chime beside Waspinator's door.

The door opened. Waspinator looked up at him, ready to shout at the intrusion, and visibly reined herself in. "Megatron? What does Megatron want?"

"Come with me," he ordered. He looked past the scout at Terrorsaur. "Both of you."

They followed him to the xenobiology lab. Tarantulas looked up from the computer. "What, is data compiling a spectator sport now?"

Megatron told them about the corpse. Tarantulas grinned. "Really? A dead Maximal?"

"Still robotic. You can't eat him," said Megatron, then turned to the flyers. "I want you two to keep track of the Maximals."

Terrorsaur raised an eyebrow. "What, all of them?"

"Just Dinobot and Optimus. Do _not_ interfere with them. Simply watch and report back to me if they do anything interesting."

Terrorsaur and Waspinator left. Tarantulas swivelled her chair to look up at Megatron. "We've got something as fun as a murdered Maximal on the ship and you're trusting _them_ to gather information?"

"No, I'm trusting Dinobot to gather information. I'm just keeping the flyers occupied and apart."

"Hm." Tarantulas touched her fingers together. "So you came all the way up here to deliver gossip in person."

Megatron leaned back on the closest table and drummed his fingers on the edge. "I have other matters to discuss with you. You must have seen the _Axalon's_ records on humans by now," he said. "One very basic encyclopaedia entry. The only vital information in it we hadn't already deduced was our expected lifespans." _Which are pathetically short. One vorn!_ The Predacon commander shook his head. "Earth was the last major alien battleground in the Great War. There _should_ be more information about it and its inhabitants."

Tarantulas shrugged. "The Maximal government declared the place forbidden. They clamped down on the information available as well."

" _Why?_ "

"I'd always assumed it was because the humans were fed up with us and asked that we forget about them and leave them alone," said Tarantulas. "What does Dinobot know?"

"He knows that he likes the writings of that one human," said Megatron flatly. He had read translations of several of Dinobot's beloved plays himself. The themes and motivations were generally accessible enough but they were set on an alien world in an alien culture and he missed all the subtleties. Dinobot might know a bit more so that he could fully appreciate the stories but Megatron didn't see what use culture would be to their situation. "He knows we're on Earth. He's certainly deduced what species we are." _And while he threatened to tell the Maximals what he knows, he hasn't yet done so._ "He knows nothing we do not."

Tarantulas looked back at the computer screen. "Why is it everyone who comes out of a pod has amnesia?" she asked suddenly.

"Bad landings."

"Sometimes, perhaps. Blackarachnia's pod was fine but I reprogrammed her. Inferno's pod was in perfect condition and the _only_ thing I did to her programming then was change her faction," Tarantulas said. "You said Tigatron wasn't even sure she was a Maximal when she was decanted. Silverbolt and Quickstrike could be blamed on energon radiation ... Does Airazor remember her life on Cybertron?"

"How should I know?" demanded Megatron, stepping away from the table to pace. "Terrorsaur's report said there were problems with her pod, however."

"Including energon radiation." Tarantulas frowned. "I wonder if memory loss is common among those put into protoform stasis. I've never heard of it before but I haven't dealt with protoforms in this sort of situation before. Maybe it's just the energon."

"They still have their skills and personalities," said Megatron, thinking aloud. "Though personality would be more a function of the spark and the two from the wasteland seem to have no skills at all. But the others ... skills but no memories."

Tarantulas shook her head. "Sparks also store memories."

"The people in the stasis pods are new creations, then." His pacing brought him to Tarantulas, where he stopped and looked over her shoulder at the data on the screen.

"Blackarachnia definitely had a previous life on Cybertron. I should know - I'm the one who removed it. Inferno ..." Tarantulas shrugged. "Nobody's programming could be as messed up as Inferno's was without a _lot_ of dabbling. Her pod was a bit unusual. I wish I'd had a better look at it."

If the Maximals had ever wondered why Inferno was rarely seen for her first few weeks after activation, they never asked. Megatron and Tarantulas had taken the warrior apart, trying to fix her programming to rid her of her belief that she was an ant. They only partially succeeded and decided to give up in case they made things even worse. "If there was a way to reach sparks now ..." Megatron started, then shook his head. "I will make quiet inquiries about the previous lives if any of the other protoforms. What are you doing?"

"This?" asked Tarantulas, waving at the computer screen. "Genetic analysis of Quickstrike and Silverbolt. Frankly, I'm surprised they've got the right number of limbs, their DNA is so strange. I'll let you know when I've figured it out."

"Speaking vaguely of genetics, have you determined why we all seem to be the same age?"

"Not _exactly_ the same, I think."

"Close enough," said Megatron. "The aliens scaled our heights, approximated our colours and builds, and then they put us all at the same developmental stage regardless of our true ages."

Tarantulas chuckled. "Given that there's nearly a four-vorn gap between Scorponok and Terrorsaur, scaling might be difficult. And some of us have ... complicated ages. After all, would you count Blackarachnia's age from when she was first sparked or from when I made her into a new person? But I think it ties in with something else - these bodies are as perfect as flesh can achieve. We're strong and healthy, our eyesight is clear, our hearing is sharp ... Oh, there are individual differences, but what can you expect from organics? And now we find that we're young adults - right at the peak of our physical development, I'd expect. We're prime specimens of this species, I just don't know why."

 

* * *

 

Terrorsaur had chosen Dinobot. It wasn't that he had any real desire to be around the warrior, it was that he was in the cargo bay. The nice, big cargo bay.

It wasn't ideal, it wasn't even very good, but it was better than his quarters or the hallways that he would swear were slowly constricting. Terrorsaur stepped into the room and took a deep breath. He'd grown so used to the feeling that there was a tight band around his chest that it was a surprise to breathe normally again.

Dinobot was sitting on a crate behind the makeshift table, watching him, had been as soon as he heard the door open. Terrorsaur smirked at him. "Enjoying your new office?"

" _You_ are."

The smirk became a scowl. Terrorsaur's claustrophobia was no secret and he resented anyone who used it against him. "I suppose this brings back memories for you," he said, gesturing at the corpse. "Did you pull the job randomly or does Optimus know you used to be a -"

Dinobot snarled and his glare was so murderous that his eyes should have gone green. Terrorsaur ended the sentence in a strangled squawk before realising that he hadn't been shot. He coughed and pulled himself back together. _Well, we're even now._

The warrior returned his attention to the body shell, tapping a pair of pliers against an open panel, one of a half-dozen. Dinobot had removed the corpse's plating in several places. Terrorsaur couldn't think of why - Megatron had said the Maximal had been shot in the head. " _This_ was never my function but I know the procedure."

Terrorsaur walked over, standing across the table from Dinobot. "What have you got?"

Dinobot shook his head. "You're a terrible spy."

"I can't just be curious?" asked Terrorsaur, bringing a hand to his chest in a wounded gesture. "I suppose this is the first time you've been in a room with a corpse you didn't make."

" _I_ do not hide bodies," said Dinobot. He shook his head. "The _Axalon_ was delayed for three megacycles looking for this person."

"They can't have searched very hard."

"If they hadn't been delayed," said Dinobot, more to himself than to Terrorsaur, "the _Axalon_ would not have been in a place to pursue our ship. We would have been destroyed by that warship." For all Megatron's careful planning, the Predacons had still been detected and chased by one of the Maximal defence ships.

Terrorsaur shrugged. "We were evading it pretty well. Maybe they sent the _Axalon_ after us because it was more manoeuvrable. Maybe the _Axalon_ got in the way and the warship didn't want to hit it. Who knows why Maximals do anything?" Terrorsaur made a noise of disgust. "Like this etchwork. Nobody's done rectangular etchings for decades. It's all curves and scrollwork now."

"So he didn't keep up with fashion trends."

"Etching weakens the plating - the only thing it's good for is decoration, so why waste it on an ugly design? And these washed-out colours ... So which one of your new friends did it?"

The sudden question caught Dinobot off-guard, as it was meant to, but he rallied too quickly to blurt out anything incriminating. "The investigation is ongoing."

_So he hasn't actually figured anything out yet._ "I hope it's Cheetor," said Terrorsaur. "It might make that little puffball interesting." _Depending on how long this takes and how badly Megatron wants to upset the Maximals, we could start a betting pool._

"It was not necessarily one of them." Dinobot stood suddenly and walked past him.

Terrorsaur moved so that the table stayed between them. "Where are you going?"

"I need more information," said Dinobot, already halfway through the door. "Don't touch anything."

The door closed. Terrorsaur glanced at the corpse and huffed quietly. "Not _my_ kind of materials."

 

* * *

 

Dinobot found Rhinox in his room. Optimus might be a better source of information regarding the _Axalon_ but Dinobot had just enough tact to not want to bother him more than he had to.

Rhinox waved him in. "Who was on the _Axalon_ on the day of the murder?" Dinobot asked before the door closed.

"There were maybe forty loaders and technicians working on the _Axalon_ on the last day," said Rhinox. "That doesn't count the bystanders who came to say goodbye or who just wanted to watch the ship launch."

"As I thought - most of my suspects are on Cybertron," said Dinobot, shaking his head. "This assignment is an exercise in frustration."

Rhinox frowned. "Most of?"

"The crew is here," said Dinobot flatly.

"You think one of _us_ could have done it?" Rhinox demanded. "I know you're trying to cover all possibilities but that's just too much."

" _Could_ have, certainly." Not particularly likely for practical reasons. It would have been better to leave the body back on Cybertron if it was one of them. "When did you see Crossbolt last?"

"Two days before takeoff." When Dinobot looked disbelieving, Rhinox spread his hands. "We were working in different sections of the ship. I was double-checking the systems, he was loading cargo."

"Hnh." It put Crossbolt in the area of the cargo bay at least. "Is there a list of the people who were working on the ship?"

The engineer thought about that. "Of the technicians who built the _Axalon_ , yes. Not of the labourers loading supplies. There would be records of them on Cybertron, not here."

Dinobot growled. "Whatever you can give me."

Rhinox swapped out the datadisc at his computer, typed for a few seconds, then removed the disc and handed it to Dinobot. "I know there's not nearly enough information. No one's expecting a miracle, Dinobot. Anything you find will be appreciated."

"I do not do things by halves."

"I know you'll do whatever you can."

_Trying may be enough for a Maximal but failure is failure to me._ Dinobot tucked the datadisc into a pocket. "One unrelated question ... why did the warship stand down while the _Axalon_ pursued our ship?"

"We were the only ship in the area that could track a transwarp jump," said Rhinox with a shrug. "When you shot at the warship, you knocked out their scanning array."

Dinobot frowned. "They told you that?"

"Yes." Then, sensing Dinobot's sudden tension, "Why?"

The warrior felt his fists clench. _I will own my crimes. I will not accept blame for one I didn't commit._ "We never fired on the warship."

It took Rhinox a minute to find his voice. Seeing the Maximal off-balance and nervous was unsettling - usually he was as sure and steady as a rock. "You're certain?"

" _I_ was the one at the weapon controls," said Dinobot. "Our plan was to out-manoeuvre them. We didn't have the firepower to fight a Maximal warship."

"They must have had a malfunction then ..." said Rhinox uncertainly.

"Or they lied to you."

"They wouldn't," Rhinox insisted. "There must have been a malfunction and they thought it was caused by your ship." He paused. "But if we hadn't been delayed ..."

Dinobot nodded. "Possibly we would have been destroyed by the warship. Possibly Megatron's plans would have continued unopposed. The time seems so short. Could not a long-term mission be delayed for a few days?"

"No," said Rhinox flatly. "It couldn't. Can we cut this short? I need to get back to the xenobiology lab."

The warrior let himself be evicted from Rhinox's quarters and watched the engineer walk off down the hall, not quite stomping but visibly agitated. _Some sort of conspiracy, perhaps, some undivulged pretence of treasonous malice ..._ Dinobot shook his head. _Ridiculous. If someone wanted the_ Axalon _delayed for a few megacycles, they could have found an easier way than vanishing one of the crew._

 

* * *

 

Tarantulas looked up. "Megatron tells me Scorponok found a dead Maximal on the ship."

"He's metal," said Rhinox. "You can't eat him."

"Megatron said the same thing. Tch, it's like I have a _reputation_." The Predacon shook her head and changed the subject. "Oh, and guess what I found out about your neophytes!"

"What?" asked Rhinox. If Tarantulas sounded this cheerful, it could only mean bad news.

The Predacon beamed. "They've both got two sets of DNA."

Of all the answers he was anticipating, that one wasn't on the list. "Is that even _possible_?"

"Apparently," shrugged Tarantulas. "The DNA in Quickstrike's blood isn't the same as the DNA in his hair, for instance. I don't understand how it works yet, it just does. It gets better."

Rhinox covered his eyes with his hand briefly. "What is it?"

"I'm pretty sure they've got the same DNA."

"Like clones?"

Tarantulas shook her head. "Nor like twins. They're chimeras. Each had his own set of DNA, but somewhere along the line bits got swapped out with each other. Probably when the pods scanned each other. To put it in simplest terms, for an example, it might be that Silverbolt's DNA said he was to be blond while Quickstrike would have black hair, but those factors got switched around."

Rhinox considered that. "The records from their pods show DNA scans from four different animals - two each, not the same two for both."

"I can't tell which sections of their DNA were swapped around but I _can_ tell you there are only two patterns." She laughed. "We _knew_ the change happened fast, but so fast it caught those two in mid-scan? I could almost find the aliens impressive."

"That's what's making them glitch?" Rhinox asked, hope sinking. _I was so certain it wasn't a structural problem. I can't repair damage to their genes!_

"Oh?" Tarantulas picked a datapad out of the pile and tossed it to him. "Oh, no. That water they drank out in the wasteland had a type of aggressive amoeba in it that's attacking their intestinal linings. Hungry little things."

_You figured it out megacycles ago and didn't bother telling me,_ thought Rhinox, angry, but didn't bother voicing it. It wouldn't do any good. Tarantulas was only doing the work because she found biology interesting, not because she cared about the health of her patients, and Rhinox needed her to do it. He read the report carefully. "Any ideas on how to cure the infection?"

"Hadn't thought about it. Trying to figure out how their DNA works was more fun."

_Don't hit the Predacon. The Predacon knows more about biology than you do. You need the Predacon's help. Focus on finding a solution._ "Nanites, maybe. The amoebas are big enough that they could be identified and killed."

Tarantulas considered that. "They'll have nanites floating around in their systems."

"I can program them to disintegrate at a given signal. They'll just become a bit more iron in their blood."

"Mmph," said Tarantulas. "Maybe once won't cause them any undue harm." There was an unspoken, _Too bad. It might have been interesting._

 

* * *

 

"Who ordered you to come on the _Axalon_ mission?"

Rattrap yelped and nearly dropped a wrench on his foot. He turned to glare. "I liked you better with metal feet."

It had taken some work to locate Rattrap. Dinobot finally found him hidden away in Sentinel's chamber, doing minor repairs. "Who ordered you to come on the _Axalon_ mission?" he repeated.

"What do _you_ care?"

Dinobot folded his arms across his chest. "Because the possibility exists that whoever ordered your presence also ... created the circumstance that you could be ordered."

"We're Maximals, all right?" snapped Rattrap, crouching to retrieve his wrench. "We don't do that. You've been around Megatron too long to think there might be other ways of doin' things."

"Then explain so I may understand." The request for information was genuine enough, though he couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"Fine." Rattrap turned back to his repairs, poking at the exposed panel without really doing anything. "I was actually the _Axalon_ project's first choice for a jack-of-all-trades type but I said no 'cause I didn't wanna leave Cybertron. Crossbolt was the second choice and he took it. Crossbolt went missin'. They looked all over for him. They couldn't find him, they called me back. They were in a hurry so they didn't give me a choice. The end." He looked back at Dinobot and made a face. "Need to see my transfer documentation?"

Dinobot ignored the sarcasm. "Yes."

"You're serious about this."

It was the incredulity in the Maximal's voice that did it. Dinobot grabbed the front of Rattrap's shirt and lifted him off the floor. "I have been set a task. _I will complete it._ "

"Cheese, chopperface, settle down." Once back on the floor, Rattrap turned and started away. "C'mon then."

Dinobot followed Rattrap down to his quarters. He had never actually been inside the Maximal's room before and found himself hoping he never would be again. The room stank with odours both machine and organic, crates and boxes were stacked haphazardly around the walls, and the floor was nearly hidden under a layer of debris. Dinobot kicked a small spool of wire and lost it in the mess. "Did the cleaner drones give up in despair?"

Rattrap was already digging through a storage locker. "Nah. I closed off their runs to the room."

"Why?"

The Maximal shrugged. "Cyberbees. Spiderdrones. Reprogrammed cleaner drones. You name it."

"Why would _anyone_ want to spy on _you_?"

"Why _wouldn't_ they?" Rattrap retorted, striking a suggestive pose. Dinobot rolled his eyes at him and Rattrap chortled and went back to his search.

Dinobot remained near the door, not trusting a floor he couldn't see. Rattrap's small feet could navigate the mess but anyone else would trip over something. "Did you know Crossbolt?"

"Well enough."

The tone said more than the words. "You didn't get along."

Rattrap shrugged without turning around. "Optimus saw one side of him, I saw another."

"What did _you_ see?" asked Dinobot.

The Maximal paused in his rummage through the locker, considering. "I guess he could be friendly enough, but he was chilly, y'know? Like he could just switch off his emotions whenever he wanted to. Real professional," said Rattrap bitterly.

"You speak ill of the deceased."

Rattrap made a derisive noise and slotted a disc into a datapad, then tossed it to Dinobot. "I think he tried to be a good guy, he just made bad choices. And if that idiot didn't get himself killed, I'd be back on Cybertron, in a bar, one hand full of high-grade and the other full of serverbot." Red eyes narrowed. "Comin' on this mission wasn't _my_ choice but I figured I'd eventually have the option of goin' home. I _tried_ to make the best of it, and now we're stuck on _this_ nutty planet and we ain't even the right _species_! _You think I wanted this?_ " As he spoke, the Maximal's voice got louder until he was shouting. "And don't you _dare_ tell Optimus I said any of that!"

Dinobot let Rattrap think about what he'd just admitted, then nodded. Rattrap's desire to be back on Cybertron was generally known but Dinobot hadn't realised how vehement it was. "Where were you on the day of the launch?"

"Down on Cybertron," said Rattrap, clearing the top of a crate with a clatter so he could sit on it. "I got a whole bar in Nova Valvolux that can alibi me if you wanna try to interview 'em."

"You weren't watching the launch?" asked Dinobot. "I would have thought you would at least go to see Rhinox off."

The Maximal shrugged. "Rhinox knows I don't like good-byes."

Dinobot activated the datapad. The transfer form looked like any he had ever seen. Then he saw the name at the bottom. "Zenith? Of the Council of Elders?"

Rattrap looked over in surprise. "You recognise the name? I don't know five Maximals that know their names, let alone any Preds. Everyone just thinks of 'em in the collective."

"I ... know politics," said Dinobot. "Why would a Maximal Elder have such an interest in the _Axalon's_ mission?"

"You ... know politics," Rattrap mimicked. "Optimus' got the rank to be on their radar." Dinobot nodded - they called their leader 'Optimus' so casually it was easy to forget it was his title, not his name. "And Zenith knew Rhinox. He'd ... Basically, if you see an Elder outside the Citadel, it's probably Zenith checkin' up on something. So he'd been to the colony a few times."

Dinobot growled. "Maximals have _many_ colonies. You spread yourselves thin and take away resources that could be better used on Cybertron."

"Makin' more Preds ain't what I'd call 'better use'," said Rattrap flatly. "I'm talking Colony Omicron." The way he said it, it seemed like Rattrap thought it didn't need further elaboration.

Dinobot crossed his arms impatiently. "And?"

"You never heard of the place?"

"I don't keep track of Maximal colonies."

"It ... Well it was the last assignment Optimus and Rhinox had before the _Axalon_ was built." He paused, considering. "That's where Optimus met Crossbolt, too. Omicron was one of his regular stops."

 

* * *

 

The huff of disapproval caught Optimus' attention and he looked up from the central workstation to see Dinobot standing at the entry to the command centre, frowning across the room. Waspinator was at the far right station, absorbed in the flashing colours on the screen. Dinobot went over to Optimus and dropped his voice: "She should not be using the computers in here."

Optimus felt himself smile slightly for the first time in hours. "I'm pretty sure Megatron sent her up to spy on us. Cheetor loaded up a video game for her. She's forgotten we're even here."

"Hff. I suppose if she's playing, she's not hacking the computer."

From Dinobot it was praise. Cheetor walked over and beamed at him. "What do you need, Dinobot?"

"I wanted to speak to you," said Dinobot, glancing back at Waspinator. Apparently deciding that the Predacon was no threat, he continued. "As the pilot, you would have been up here during the final megacycles before take-off."

Cheetor nodded. "Yeah, I was doing pre-flight checks and stuff." Cheetor glanced up at Optimus and cringed in on himself, looking miserable. Optimus reached over and patted his arm. "If anyone noticed something was wrong, it should've been me. Sometimes an alarm would get tripped by accident. I mean, the ship was crawling with people. I checked up each time because it's policy to always check on an alarm even when you know it's an accident. But there wasn't an alarm for Crossbolt."

"When did you see him last?"

"Just before the shift started," said Cheetor. "He was chatting to Optimus outside the cargo entrance. I went over to say hi and Crossbolt made some joke about there still being time to back out and I told him that I wasn't going to. Then he went inside the ship."

"I will be accessing the security logs later," said Dinobot. "Optimus, I have some questions -"

Anything else the warrior would have said was cut off by a shriek. "Useless!" yelled Terrorsaur, stomping into the command centre. "Oh, sure, you can shoot a crocodile but you can't watch a Maximal!"

Waspinator scrambled to her feet and shouted back: "Terror-bot doing his job so much he let lizard-bot wander away!"

"Yeah, well, I found him again. He'd have gone back to the cargo bay eventually anyway."

"Terror-bot says Waspinator is slacking off when terror-bot not even in the right room!"

_I don't need this. I can't deal with a couple of Predacons screeching at each other, not right now._ "Both of you - out," said Optimus. "Now."

Their anger immediately changed targets. Terrorsaur glared at him. "You don't order _us_ , Maximal."

"Oh, terror-bot knows Maximals. Always think they can tell Predacons what to do," Waspinator snapped.

_If they don't go away, I'm going to hit one of them,_ Optimus thought. _And the worst of it is I don't think they're doing it on purpose._ "Leave."

"I can't _take_ this any more!" Terrorsaur screeched, eye twitching, rounding on Waspinator again. "I have to put up with your incompetence every day and if you _ever_ sing again -"

Dinobot grabbed each flyer by the arm and threw them onto the lift, then punched the control that made it descend at maximum speed.

The lift returned, occupied with a dripping wet Tigatron. Dinobot gave her a small nod of approval - the tracker was as fully dressed as she ever was and had a hand laser and a knife hanging from her belt, practicality winning out over ideals. She also had one of the experimental commlinks around her wrist and a box strapped to her back. "Cheetor told me what happened. I returned as soon as I could. Why are you dropping Predacons on me?" she asked.

"It was the fastest way to get rid of them," said Dinobot.

Cheetor glanced at Optimus. "That wasn't a truce violation, was it?"

"Not when it was also the fastest way to end Terrorsaur's panic attack." Dinobot frowned, glancing back at the hallway.

_Right. Terrorsaur's claustrophobic._ "Is that how it usually manifests?" asked Optimus.

"That's how it starts."

When it was clear Dinobot wasn't going to elaborate, Optimus shrugged inwardly. Dinobot had told them various traits of the Predacons but rarely went into detail. He had enough respect for his former comrades not to talk about their personal lives.

Optimus changed the subject. "Tigatron, dry off and take over monitor duty. Cheetor, come find me when Tigatron's relieved you. I'll be in my quarters. Dinobot, come with me." He knew he wouldn't be able to talk about Crossbolt without getting upset. If a Predacon saw, it would just give Megatron something else to use against him. Better to have this discussion in the privacy of his room.

It surprised him when the first question Dinobot asked when the door closed behind him was, "How did Rattrap meet Rhinox?"

Optimus glanced over. "Rattrap did some trading between Cybertron and a few of the colonies, including one Rhinox was on."

"Omicron?"

_How did he hear about Colony Omicron? There's no record in the_ Axalon _!_ "... Yes."

He was saved having to explain further. Dinobot nodded. "Rattrap said he knew Crossbolt. If they had overlapping trade routes, it explains the connection."

Of course Colony Omicron would mean nothing to Dinobot. To a Predacon it was just another Maximal colony. At most he might know it had been destroyed. Optimus relaxed a bit, though made a mental note to reprimand Rattrap later. There were words it was better not to say at all. "I didn't know they'd met."

"Did Crossbolt have any enemies that you know of?"

Optimus sat on his berth, elbows on his knees and hands dangling. "He didn't have any."

"He had at least one."

"He was just a trader!"

"Everything points to Crossbolt being targeted specifically." Dinobot paced the room angrily. "I thought possibly someone wanted Rattrap on this mission but it would have been easier to transfer Crossbolt away." Dinobot stopped suddenly, looking back over his shoulder. "Could this have been targeted at _you_? As far as you knew, your friend abandoned you without so much as an explanation. Something to demoralise you."

"I ..." Optimus considered that a moment. "No. I wasn't the most popular Optimus and there were people who were jealous that I got the assignment to start an outer colony, but they wouldn't have killed someone for it."

"Then we are back to Crossbolt himself. This was no crime of opportunity. There was too much effort involved," Dinobot insisted. "It was common knowledge that the _Axalon_ was going on a long-term mission. Exploring and colonising, which says to me that 'long-term' could easily be 'permanent' if you found a suitable world. If someone merely wished for Crossbolt to be out of the way, he was already putting himself out of the way. Instead, someone snuck aboard a ship crawling with workers and killed him without setting off an alarm. Then he hid the body." The warrior paused. "Were you not suspicious when Crossbolt left without taking his things?"

"His quarters were cleaned out," said Optimus. "It's why we thought he just left."

"So time was taken to do that as well. Which quarters were his?"

"It's the room Airazor and Tigatron have now," said Optimus. The door chimed. "That'll be Cheetor."

Dinobot hissed in annoyance, either at him or the world in general. "Then I will find one of them." He stalked out, though the effect wasn't as impressive as it had been when he had a tail to lash.

Cheetor slipped in. "You okay, big bot?"

"I'll recover." A part of Optimus' mind insisted that they were in the middle of a crisis, that he didn't have time to mourn and mope about and cling to his friends. It was right, which only added a layer of guilt. He shoved it aside - better to take some time now to grieve than to bottle it up. In these bodies, there were no more physical advantages - he needed his mind clear to deal with the situation and with the Predacons.

_Tomorrow I'll get back to acting like the Optimus I'm supposed to be. For today, I just want to be Primal, who lost a friend._

 


	3. Chapter 3

The large, dangerous animals avoided the _Axalon_ , but the local rodents moved right in. It was warm, sheltered, full of wires to chew, and there were no predators.

Well, not many.

Airazor's hand darted out and caught the mouse before it could duck under a pipe. The rodents really liked the engineering section. There were all sorts of nooks and crannies to hide in.

She held it up by the base of its tail and inspected it critically. There wasn't much eating on a mouse. A few of them could make a decent snack, though catching them burned more fuel than they were worth. They couldn't just be eaten whole any more either, upping their nuisance value. On the other hand, she was fed up with crocodile. Rattrap complained about it sometimes but it was his own fault for choosing a tasty alt-mode.

"Airazor."

She looked up. "Hey, Dinobot."

He had a scanner in one hand. The warrior tilted his head, not quite a nod. "I require access to your quarters."

"What for?" asked Airazor. "Part of your investigation?"

"Yes. Your quarters were originally assigned to Crossbolt."

"Don't tell me my room is haunted." Dinobot said nothing. The glare was enough to chastise her for making light of the situation. "Sorry," said Airazor. "What do you need?"

"I wish to see if the assassin left anything behind. I may need to remove some floor panels."

Airazor let the mouse go and stood. "Whatever will help. I never noticed anything unusual but I'm only ever in there to sleep. How's Optimus holding up?"

"Not ... well," said Dinobot reluctantly, falling into step beside her. "He needs to be strong now - if Megatron senses any weakness in him, he will exploit it. If you are concerned, check in on him yourself."

"I'm concerned, it's just ... I don't know what to say," Airazor admitted. "I'm always out scouting, flying patrols - I don't know Optimus that well. Not personally."

Dinobot huffed quietly. "You say that to _me_."

"I didn't know the crew before I woke up here. You've been around longer and spend more time with him than I do," said Airazor with a shrug.

"Give sorrow words. He will appreciate your concern, even inelegantly phrased." Dinobot said it like an order, a tone that allowed no further comment. Airazor hid a grin. _Play 'I am the brooding Predacon outsider' all you want, Dinobot - you're worried about him._ Admittedly, things had to be pretty bad if Dinobot was worried but it was always nice to see him care.

They reached her quarters. Airazor stood back and let Dinobot prowl around with the scanner. There wasn't much for him to trip over - despite the fact that both Airazor and Tigatron lived there, neither owned much. The wall racks held a few spare weapons and Tigatron's wet clothes. There was a star chart of Cybertron's system on one wall and a fist-sized rock sitting on the table. Airazor had searched hard for the most typical-looking rock she could find.

Dinobot found what he was looking for in the wall between Airazor and Cheetor's quarters, just a bit that was solid where it should have been hollow. Tools were fetched and it took both of them to lift down the wall panel.

Airazor peered around Dinobot. "Is that all?"

There was a rifle and a couple of small boxes. Dinobot glanced at her, eyebrow raised. " _You_ ask that?"

"The _Axalon_ was a colonising mission. They didn't know if they would ever see Cybertron again," said Airazor. "I'd have thought he'd want to take more of it with him. Why didn't he pack for the trip?" She frowned. "Why didn't _I_ pack for the trip?"

"Perhaps those in protoform stasis do not get to bring their own cargo," said Dinobot. "A way to start a new life on a new world."

"Poetic, except it doesn't happen like that. I asked when I first arrived, hoping to find some clue as to why I was here. I ... well, you'll think it's silly," said Airazor. "I used to fly space patrols - mostly just being a mobile signal relay, sometimes chasing pirates away from our traders, usually a whole lot of nothing. Every time I docked somewhere for refuelling or maintenance or whatever, I'd pick up a souvenir. Just cheap little things as a way of remembering where I'd been. I'm sure I'd have brought those with me, but I checked the crate that the manifest said went with my pod and it was just some generic spare parts." She shrugged. "But I don't remember signing up for the mission either. Maybe I changed."

"The crate may have been mislabelled."

She shook her head. "We checked Tigatron's, too. Same thing."

"Hm." Dinobot had opened the boxes while they were talking. "Nothing but entertainment datadiscs."

"I guess some people just pack light." Airazor reached past him and took the rifle out of the hole. "I'll take Crossbolt's things to Optimus. Don't worry about the wall. I'll fix it later."

 

* * *

 

"What are _you_ doing in here?" Dinobot snarled.

"Why do I keep findin' Preds in here?" Rattrap demanded, swinging off the crate he'd been perching on to stomp over to Dinobot. "I already had to chase Terrorsaur outta here."

"Idiot vermin! Megatron wants to know what happened as much as we do - Terrorsaur was sent to spy on me, not interfere in my work. He wouldn't have caused a scene in the command centre if you'd minded your own business!"

"So is that why you're bringin' another in?" asked Rattrap, jabbing a finger at Scorponok, who had followed Dinobot. "Pred content of the cargo bay gettin' low?"

Scorponok gave the offending finger a look that said, _I no longer have claws but I know where the shears are kept._ Dinobot smacked Rattrap's hand aside. "Scorponok found the body, therefore I need to talk to Scorponok. Leave or I will remove you."

Muttering threats, Rattrap left. When the door slid closed, Scorponok snorted quietly. "So they don't treat you any better even when you wear their symbol."

Dinobot kept his back turned - these soft faces were too open and his former comrade would read him too easily. "He is ... on edge."

"You don't have to cover for them, Dinobot."

"There is nothing to cover for," Dinobot growled. "In time you will realise that _these_ Maximals are not our enemies."

"Yeah, and if _you_ live long enough you'll realise they're all the same. It doesn't matter what you do here. If we get back to Cybertron you'll just be another Predacon outlaw."

"Better a clean execution at the hands of the Maximals."

Scorponok understood and said nothing. Dinobot briefly shut his eyes. _Oh, yes, Megatron may have friends in high places ... but I have enemies in higher. No matter the choices I make, all paths before me lead to destruction!_

_But this is not the time to think of that._ Dinobot set his mind to the matter at hand and turned to Scorponok. "Why were you tearing up this bit of floor specifically?"

Scorponok shrugged. "The room with the pump is below here. I have to run a pipe to Megatron's quarters. Running it up to this level and across is easier than running it along the lower level and up."

"Did the deck plates seem loose?"

"Who could tell? They're too heavy now," said the technician, making a face.

"Did you see anything else? Touch anything else?"

"I burned that hole in the dead bot's finger to see if it'd react. I touched its shoulder. I called Megatron, the little cat showed up, then Optimus was shouting." Scorponok shot a contemptuous glance down the hole. "No Predacon did it, anyway. We don't hide bodies." He left.

Dinobot found a flashlight and crouched down by the hole in the deck plates. The technician had touched on the aspect of the act that most confused Dinobot. _When a Predacon kills, they want others to know about it. They_ must _tell, they_ must _let everyone know that they were better than their enemy or else there's no point. Is it that the body wasn't supposed to be discovered immediately? Was Crossbolt supposed to simply vanish? Is there someone back on Cybertron gloating that no one will ever find the body? Is it merely that the killer couldn't sneak a dead body off the ship?_

The light hit a patch of the floor of the crawlspace wrong and Dinobot found himself looking at a scuff mark. _So what? The body was tied in place but not absolutely secure. The ship has been thrown around enough that ... No, these extend beyond the range of movement. There's a trail._

He climbed down into the hole. In his robot body, Dinobot would have never been able to navigate the crawlspace. Now, despite the pipes and cables, it wasn't even a tight fit.

A mouse ran over his hand. He grabbed at it but it scurried away into the darkness.

Dinobot followed the drag marks for several metres. Then there was a curved, sloping wall in front of him and before Dinobot could think what that meant, a force net materialised around him like a cage. _"Intruder alert. Identify yourself."_

"Sentinel, this is Dinobot - stand down!" Lacking energy signatures, unable to identify them individually, Rhinox had reprogrammed Sentinel to detect organic beings over forty kilograms and identify by voices. The obvious flaw in the system would be exposed as soon as a Predacon built a voice changer but it was what they had for now.

_Why did Sentinel activate now? I've been down here for several cycles,_ thought Dinobot, annoyed, as he continued to follow the trail along the foot of the dome of the stasis hold, then realised, _Of course. The stasis hold. It's good to know my comrades have enough sense to realise that a door isn't the only way a room may be entered._

_But this is ... inefficient. Foolish. Why expend the extra effort to move the body? I'm still under the cargo bay._

The trail ended. Then Dinobot looked up at a thick pipe banded by scuff marks and realised his mistake. "Crossbolt wasn't in the _floor_ of the cargo bay," he said to himself, startled into speech. "He was in the _ceiling_ of the stasis hold."

 

* * *

 

Terrorsaur debated the merits of leaving the shelter of the _Axalon_. On one hand, wide open sky. On the other, pouring rain. He was feeling better though, even with the front end of the _Axalon_ looming over him. He was leaned against one of the ship's landing legs; good, solid metal at his back, but also unusual - there were no wings or beast head to mind.

He found he liked the look of the rain when the wind was still, like a beaded curtain hanging off the edge of the ship. The tidy cut-off pleased him. When the wind blew the rain just looked messy. _Didn't someone do art with fountains once? I'm sure I read about that somewhere. I know no one was doing it when I was in Betacron._

The sound was ... well, it was noise. Terrorsaur had no appreciation for the audile arts. The rain and the waterfall under the _Axalon_ just sounded like a whole lot of wet.

There was another sound behind him - a clatter of stone on stone - and he looked back over his shoulder. Waspinator was sitting near the edge of the chasm, occasionally tossing rocks down it. She hadn't so much as looked at him since Dinobot kicked them outside, let alone spoken to him. She kept herself curled up most of the time, shivering. Terrorsaur thought the rain made the air pleasantly cool, Waspinator apparently found it chilly.

_One of us has to call a truce,_ thought Terrorsaur with a sigh. _I suppose it's up to me to be the mature one, even though she started it._ "Waspinator ..."

Another rock was sacrificed to the chasm. "Oh, is terror-bot talking to Waspinator now? Waspinator thought terror-bot didn't want to hear Waspinator talk."

"I just don't want to hear you talk about crocodiles. Come on."

"No. Terror-bot yelled at Waspinator."

_Stubborn bug._ "I can make it up to you."

"Ha!"

"I can. I've seen you watching me when you think I'm not looking," said Terrorsaur, inspecting his nails. "I know what you want. Don't deny it."

The scout got to her feet and looked back at him, startled. "Waspinator never denied it!"

He closed the distance between them until they were close enough to touch. "I'm only letting you do this because I think it might feel good but ... you _know_ this is weird, right?"

Waspinator set her jaw. "Waspinator doesn't care."

"All right." Terrorsaur reached back, removed the band that tied his hair, and shook out the long red strands. Then he turned away from Waspinator and sat on the ground. "Go ahead. Don't make me regret this."

Behind him, Waspinator squealed with delight, then her fingers were combing and twisting at his hair. It was shiny and brightly coloured and Terrorsaur thought it was one of his better features in this body but he didn't find long hair as endlessly fascinating as Waspinator did. She'd been wanting to play with his since the first day.

 

* * *

 

Quickstrike didn't like moving more than was absolutely necessary but he obediently followed Tarantulas when ordered to come up to the xenobiology lab. For one thing, there was a possible cure to his condition. For another, he found it hard to argue when Tarantulas and Tarantulas' cleavage asked him to do things.

Silverbolt was already there, trying to look alert and managing not to slump in his chair too badly. Rhinox was by the table nearest the door, fiddling with a scanner and some techie thing that looked like a dart gun. Tarantulas went and perched on the other table, leaning forward with her ankles crossed primly, or it would have been prim on anyone but Tarantulas. The woman was an innuendo in a purple jumpsuit.

Quickstrike collapsed into the second chair. "Well, what've you got for us, big guy?"

"You're infected with amoebas that are attacking your intestinal lining," said Rhinox. "If left unchecked they could spread to the rest of your body. We're going to try to counteract them with amoebicidal nanites. With the parasites removed, your bodies should just heal on their own."

Quickstrike blinked at him. "What?"

"Tiny bugs are eating your insides," Tarantulas translated. "We're going to stick itty-bitty drones in you to kill them."

"Ah," said Silverbolt. "Er ... how?"

"They'll be injected into your bloodstream. From there it should take a few minutes for the nanites to locate the infection," said Rhinox. "I'll be monitoring them. If there's any trouble with the nanites, I'll deactivate them."

Tarantulas beamed and rubbed her hands together. "Who gets to go first?"

"Shoot, I will," said Quickstrike immediately. He was fed up with being sick and willing to do anything to end it. That and there was no way he was going to look like a coward in front of Tarantulas.

"Pull up your sleeve a bit," Rhinox ordered. When that was done, Rhinox pressed the tip of the dart gun to a vein in Quickstrike's forearm and pulled the trigger. It stung like a nasty insect bite and a few drops of blood leaked out but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

After several minutes, Rhinox glanced up from his scanner. "The nanites look to be in the right area. How do you feel?"

"Just as lousy as I've been all day," Quickstrike griped. "Your metal bugs ain't - nngh!" He doubled over as the pain hit, twisting up and burning his insides. There was shouting above him and hands helping him to the floor but they were somehow unreal. Nothing existed but the pain. He curled around it tightly.

He didn't know how long the agony lasted, but it vanished as suddenly as it struck, leaving him a bit dazed. Quickstrike became aware that he was leaning against something soft and warm and holding something tightly. He uncurled slightly. Tarantulas. She must have been the one to help him down, and he'd just ended up in her lap and clung to her arm without thinking. He tilted his head to rest against Tarantulas' ample bosom and peered at her out of the corner of his eye. "How long've I been here?"

The Predacon chuckled. "About twenty cycles."

"I miss all the good stuff."

Tarantulas gave him a shove. "Teheheh - off, you. Your facial fur is scratchy and you badly need to bathe."

Quickstrike grudgingly disentangled himself from the Predacon but it felt more like a 'not now' than a 'never', so that was all right. And, he thought, rubbing at his short beard, _I can admit she's right on both counts._ He stood and helped Tarantulas back to her feet.

Rhinox waved a scanner at him. "How do you feel?"

Quickstrike ran a hand back through his hair. "Better," he said, surprised. He'd only been alive for seven days and the last four had been awful. "Not _great_ but better. Real hungry, though. Was it supposed to hurt like that?"

"The nanites were only attacking the amoebas. They caused you no damage," said Tarantulas. "Rhinox wanted to stop when it hit you. I thought it plain that it just meant the experiment was working."

"The nanites have disintegrated," Rhinox informed him. "In theory you shouldn't suffer any ill effects from them. You can go, but if you feel that _anything_ is wrong, tell me _immediately_."

"All right, your turn," Tarantulas told Silverbolt.

His fellow neophyte looked awful and it was just going to get worse for him. Quickstrike smirked. "I think I'm gonna stick around to watch 'Bolt recover. Moral support, like."

 

* * *

 

Tigatron and Airazor looked up from the weather map on the navigation screen when Dinobot entered the control room. "How does it go?" asked Tigatron. Apparently her clothes were still drying. Why she didn't fabricate a second set was beyond him. She was seated at the station with Airazor leaning over her shoulder.

"Answers are unlikely and justice unlikelier," said Dinobot, taking a seat at the tactical console. He typed in a few codes to access the security grid.

Knowing what he was looking for now, Dinobot had checked the cables that had secured the body down. They were new, as expected on a new ship being loaded, but with a bit of wear along one side. Looped around a strong pipe, the cable was a pulley - Crossbolt had been killed in the stasis hold and hidden in the ceiling. Then the body was moved so that its residual energy signature wouldn't set off the alarms around the stasis hold and tied down so as not to activate the motion sensors if the ship pitched. He cursed himself for not thinking of it before - the murder occurred when the _Axalon_ was being loaded. The cargo bay would have been full of people. Of course Crossbolt wasn't killed there. _Someone with training in this task would have thought of that immediately. I've been doing everything in the wrong order._

Beyond the motion and energy sensors, there were four cameras in the stasis hold, hidden in the vents. Dinobot had checked all the vents out of thoroughness and four cameras seemed a bit excessive, even to him. Two would have been adequate, three was overdoing it. Three were positioned equidistant around the perimeter to show as much of the room as possible. The fourth simply pointed uselessly at one of the stasis pod drop chutes. Not that he minded - more cameras meant he had more chances to see Crossbolt's murderer. Dinobot chose to review the footage from the camera that most directly faced the door. Perhaps the assassin was foolish enough to walk right in.

There was the stasis hold, empty. The protoforms had not yet been loaded - in fact, they were the last things to be loaded onto the ship. After a while, there was Crossbolt, alive, alone, carrying a crate. He walked towards the camera at an angle, set the crate on the floor, opened a hatch in the wall, then started taking small jars full of light out of the crate and stacking them in the cabinet. _Embers,_ Dinobot realised. Not sparks, just pieces of them that could be combined into sparks. The _Axalon's_ spark surgeon could use them to give life to a blank protoform.

_We have a blank protoform,_ Dinobot thought, but forgot the idea entirely when the monitor flickered. The timestamp jumped forward fifteen cycles and the stasis hold was empty.

Dinobot checked the room's other cameras and found the same thing, almost. The three cameras that faced the room all suffered the same glitch. _I should have known. Sentinel challenged me when I got too close to the stasis hold,_ Dinobot thought. _Anyone who could bypass the security system could bypass the cameras, especially the pre-Sentinel system. There will be no record._

_And where is the feed from the fourth camera?_ All it faced was the floor but his inability to access the footage bothered him. _It's an active camera. It should be part of the grid._

He activated the comm circuit to the xenobiology lab. "Dinobot to Rhinox."

After a moment, the speaker activated. _"Rhinox here. What do you need, Dinobot?"_ Somewhere behind Rhinox, Quickstrike was laughing.

"I cannot access one of the security cameras in the stasis hold. The one in the portside vent." When the only answer was silence, Dinobot spoke again: "It is one of ours?" If it was Predacon technology, he should have recognised it.

_"_ I _never put a spycam in the stasis hold!"_ huffed Tarantulas' voice.

_"Yes, it's ours,"_ said Rhinox slowly, before Dinobot could question the voices in the background. _"I remember that one - one of the techs read the blueprints wrong and installed it before anyone noticed the error."_

"It's wired into _something_. I need to access its records from four megacycles before the _Axalon's_ scheduled launch." It probably suffered the same glitch as the others - if it worked at all - but Dinobot had to see.

_"Could you get Rattrap to help you? I'm in the middle of something."_

The connection cut. Dinobot growled at the console.

"You know he's been focused on trying to find a way to repair Quickstrike and Silverbolt," said Tigatron.

"Could you find the system the camera is wired into?"

"Before the change, I may have spent a total of two days inside the _Axalon_. Perhaps a megacycle of that was spent outside the CR chamber," Tigatron reminded him. "I'm still learning my way around. I have some skill with hacking but I feel off about hacking our own base."

Airazor held up her hands. "I leave the technical stuff to the techs."

_I do not wish to bother Optimus, Cheetor is probably still with him ... no choice but the rat._ Dinobot activated the comm system again, putting it on the intercom to the whole ship: " _Vermin!_ Get up to the command centre _immediately_!" Airazor chuckled and Tigatron shook her head, then they got back to their atmospheric scans.

After a few minutes, Rattrap appeared, wearing a tool belt and brandishing a ratchet. "This had better be good, chopperface."

Dinobot walked over, plucked the tool out of Rattrap's hand, and stepped around him to prod him in the back with it, pushing him towards the console. "You weren't my first choice, rat without a tail, but you'll do."

"Seriously, that's the best you got?" asked Rattrap, looking back over his shoulder. "You finally ran out of insults so now you're just stating the obvious?"

"I was quoting."

"Quote something good, then. I ain't doin' all the work here, you overgrown, stinky iguana." Rattrap paused. "Er ... why _did_ you call me up here?"

"The camera on the port side of the stasis hold cannot be accessed through the main grid. Rhinox said you could access it."

Rattrap spun and caught the ratchet, though he couldn't break Dinobot's grip. "What? Rhinox said that?"

"Yes."

Rattrap stopped pulling at the ratchet but didn't let go. "What timeframe?" he asked dubiously. Dinobot told him and Rattrap nodded, releasing the tool to go to the console. "All right. Should be doable."

The Maximal's hands flashed over the keyboard, then the footage appeared on the screen. "There. Happy?"

"Hnn." Unlike the other cameras, this one didn't glitch. Unfortunately it was still useless - it pointed in the wrong direction and the walls and floor of the empty hold were too rough for reflections. There was a nearly imperceptible spike in the light levels four cycles in, possibly the flash of a laser. That was all.

"Enough," said Dinobot, and Rattrap shut off the video. _So I know when and where the murder occurred. Useful, but not the information I most want to know._

He handed Rattrap his ratchet back, then pushed him out of the way to check the cameras in the cargo bay on the off-chance that the assassin had gone straight down. He came up empty and expected it - the assassin knew how to cover his tracks. No one would notice someone climbing into a vent on a ship that was being finished and loaded.

"I guess that's it then," said Rattrap.

The warrior glanced back, surprised that Rattrap was still there. "Not quite. There is more security footage I need to check. After that, I have one more idea."

 

* * *

 

It was easy to tell when Silverbolt had recovered. He uncurled, took three steps, and hoisted Quickstrike up by the front of his shirt. "Why did you insist on staying?"

"Misery loves company," said Quickstrike, trying to twist away. "Don't start somethin' you can't finish, 'Bolt."

"I thought the matter _was_ finished!"

Rhinox sighed, caught Quickstrike under his arms, and took him from Silverbolt. "We just repaired you. Don't even think about damaging each other."

Grumbling and shooting angry looks at each other, the neophytes left. Tarantulas giggled. "Ah, Maximal camaraderie! I'm going to see how Blackarachnia's doing." With that, the Predacon left as well.

Rhinox contacted Tigatron to tell her the results of the experiment, spent a few minutes tidying up the xenobiology lab, then went up to Optimus' quarters and pressed the door chime. "Optimus? It's Rhinox."

Cheetor's voice answered quietly: "Come in."

He found Optimus lying on his side, head pillowed on Cheetor's thigh. Cheetor was sitting up, petting Optimus' hair and looking worried. The pilot shrugged. "I didn't know what else to do. He ... he does this for me sometimes when I'm upset."

"I'll look after him for a while," said Rhinox. "Go on."

Cheetor carefully eased Optimus onto the foam padding and retreated. "I wasn't asleep," said Optimus when the door closed.

"I can give you some good news at least," said Rhinox as Optimus sat up and rubbed at his eyes. The fact that his berth was scaled for a larger being only added to the effect of making the Maximal leader look small and miserable. "Tarantulas managed to pinpoint what was wrong with Quickstrike and Silverbolt. It was an amoebic infection. We used nanites to clean them out. They're not back to one hundred percent but they're doing better than they were. I don't think the nanites will hurt them in the long term but I'd rather not use them again just in case there are cumulative effects. I'll know more in a day or two."

"Good," said Optimus. Rhinox sat down beside him and waited. Then, after several minutes: "Has Dinobot ..."

Rhinox shook his head. "He's found that the ... attack ... happened in the stasis hold, not the cargo bay, about four megacycles before the scheduled launch. He also found the fourth camera. He thinks it was just installed incorrectly."

Optimus slumped forward and ran his hands through his hair. "I hate lying to them."

"So do I but it would just worry them if they knew," said Rhinox, resting a hand on Optimus' back. "Until we know there's a threat ..."

"And we don't want to give the Predacons any more leverage than they already have," Optimus finished. "I still hate it."

Rhinox considered telling Optimus what Dinobot had said - that the warship that was chasing the Predacons wasn't damaged, that they lied so that the _Axalon_ would pursue the Predacons. _I will, but not right now. Optimus has enough to think about._

 

* * *

 

"I don't see why everyone refuses to go out in the rain," said Tigatron with only a little accusation. "We're completely waterproof now."

"What good's waterproofing in these bodies?" asked Airazor, who had declined to go for a walk that morning. "Our insides are wet through."

There was nothing to look at outside and the Predacons were all holed up various places on the _Axalon_ doing whatever it was Predacons did in their spare time. Monitor duty was feeling distinctly pointless and no one needed them for anything so Airazor and Tigatron moved two chairs to the central workstation and passed the time chatting. At least the chairs were padded now.

Tigatron shook her head. "Inferno's the worst. It baffles me how someone who showers twice a day can hate the rain so much."

Cheetor padded in, subdued and unhappy. "Hey, Airazor. Hey, big cat. I'll take over from here if you want."

"You hate monitor duty," said Airazor.

Cheetor shrugged. "Yeah but I gotta be _doing_ something. I can't do anything to help Optimus but I can at least do my job, you know?"

"How is he?" asked Tigatron.

"Rhinox is with him now. He's just ... sad. He doesn't even want to talk or anything. Optimus already kind of blames himself for _this_ ," - Cheetor tugged at his shirt - "and there's Predacons all over and ..."

_And now he finds out that a friend of his was murdered a year ago and was hidden on the_ Axalon _the whole time,_ thought Airazor, suppressing a shudder. She got up and patted Cheetor on the shoulder. "Do _you_ want to talk?"

The pilot shook his head. "Nah, I'm ... well, not _fine_ , I just want to work for a bit and feel useful."

Airazor gave him a quick hug - sometimes Cheetor complained when he was fussed over by the others but he always accepted it from her or Tigatron. "You want company?"

"No. Not right now. Sorry."

"If we just go below the _Axalon_ we'll be available if you need us," said Tigatron, though it was a question directed at Airazor.

Airazor smiled slightly. "All right, but I'm not going out in the rain."

"As you wish," said Tigatron with a half-bow, not quite sarcasm, then straightened up and paused. "Actually, if you'll wait a moment ..." Tigatron vanished back into the ship. Cheetor sat down at a workstation and tapped a few keys.

"We've been running weather simulations all afternoon," said Airazor. "We've got rain for at least four more days."

The pilot sighed. "Is there _any_ good news today?"

"Well, Rhinox called up a little while ago and said the neophytes were back on their feet, so there's more people around to be bored at."

Tigatron arrived a few minutes later with her commlink and a small box. "What is it?" asked Airazor.

The tracker chuckled quietly. "Not crocodile."

They took the lift down, stepped out, and were startled by a voice: "Oh, what now?"

The Maximals turned towards the chasm. "You're still out here?" asked Tigatron.

"Obviously," said Terrorsaur. He was sitting on the ground, knees drawn up, feet crossed at the ankles, arms loosely crossed over his knees. Waspinator was kneeling behind him, playing with his hair. She didn't even look up. "What do _you_ want?"

Airazor had been feeling a little sorry for the air warrior earlier when Waspinator was teasing him, but Terrorsaur was back to his usual abrasive self, reminding Airazor that she couldn't stand him. "We want to be out here. Your little time-out's got to be over by now."

"We were kicked out and now you're kicking us back _in_?" Terrorsaur demanded.

"The lift for the cargo bay is large," said Tigatron before Airazor could get drawn into an argument, with far more reasonableness than the scout thought the Predacon deserved. "It's the closest you can get to being outside while still being inside."

Terrorsaur got to his feet, causing Waspinator to make an annoyed sound that wasn't quite a buzz. "Whatever. Come on, Waspinator."

The lift disappeared back into the _Axalon_. Tigatron frowned. "Did Terrorsaur's hair seem a bit ... odd?"

Terrorsaur with his hair down wasn't particularly unusual but half of it had been twisted into thin braids. Airazor chuckled. "Wasps happen, I guess. They must be on speaking terms again."

"Oh?"

"You were out today so you missed it," said Airazor, gratefully latching on to the light topic. "Waspinator wasn't just bragging about how she saved Terrorsaur from that crocodile, she was making up little songs about it. Speaking of which, pass me some of that not-crocodile."

They went to sit near the edge of the chasm and Tigatron opened the small container. "I brought back a couple other kinds but I know you like these."

Tucked into the box were four marula fruit. Airazor laughed. "You went out in the rain just to pick fruit?"

"I wanted to go for a walk anyway. This gave me a destination." The tracker smiled. "Even I am getting tired of crocodile."

Airazor took one gratefully and bit into it. "Right," she said after she swallowed. "Waspinator singing."

Tigatron selected a fruit for herself and sighed dramatically. "I don't think I want to know."

"So she was doing this one where she'd take the letters of her name and come up with adjectives that started with that letter. Wonderful, amazing, stupendous, perfect ..." Airazor continued, knowing Tigatron's protest was a token one. " _'Waspinator is wonderful, as everyone knows! She kept big lizard from biting terror-bot's toes! ...'_ I can't do the voice but you get the idea."

"Unfortunately," Tigatron smiled.

Airazor grinned. "Waspinator gets so caught up in coming up with verses that she forgets how to spell her name. So she asks Terrorsaur for help."

"And he's even more fed up with her bragging than we are."

"Mmhm. He got her to spell out WASPY IS A BUZZHEAD WHO NEVER SHUTS UP before she realised she'd been tricked."

 


	4. Chapter 4

"Why would a Maximal hide a body?" asked Dinobot. He'd gone back to the cargo bay and after a quick search found a small personal computer and a cable.

Rattrap had decided to follow him. "What kinda question is that?"

"It is the one that I asked you."

The Maximal frowned. "Obvious, isn't it? The killer didn't want people to know they'd killed."

Dinobot set the small computer on the makeshift table near Crossbolt's head and attached the cable to it. "I _know_ that, vermin," he growled in annoyance. "Why would they not want it known?"

"So that they wouldn't be caught and punished. Why else?" asked Rattrap. "Or are you allowed to just go around offin' people you don't like in Pred Land? ... What? What's that look supposed to mean? Don't tell me I offended your delicate Predacon sensibilities!"

Dinobot schooled his expression and shook his head. "I can understand how it can sometimes be ... prudent for the assassin to remain anonymous but to hide the deed entirely is cowardly."

"I'll remember to paint 'Rattrap Did It' across your shell when I ... You again?" The latter was directed at Terrorsaur who had just walked in with Waspinator in tow. His hair was down and strangely ropey and she had her long coat again. Dinobot arched an eyebrow when the flyers came in but didn't say anything. The question was plain: _Who let you back in here?_

"Tigatron and Airazor kicked us back in, so we're going to take over the cargo lift," said Terrorsaur with as much defiance as he could for someone admitting he'd been pushed around, then narrowed his eyes at Rattrap. "If that's _allowed_."

Dinobot waved the Predacons past and they vanished down the large elevator. "You gotta stop lettin' the Preds climb all over the evidence," said Rattrap.

"They're not."

The temperature dropped a few degrees as a breeze from the open shaft found its way up into the cargo bay. Rattrap huddled into himself, glared briefly at the open lift, then made a noise that dismissed both Predacons and Dinobot's defence of them. "You actually find anything in all your stompin' around?"

"Rhinox is not the assassin."

Rattrap rolled his eyes. "Wow, you're real good at this, ain'tcha?"

"He would have been too bulky to fit in the crawlspace."

"Brilliant. Wait, what're you doing?" Rattrap asked when Dinobot carefully removed the front panel of Crossbolt's helm.

Dinobot held up the loose end of the cable. "The shot went through Crossbolt's processor but not his memory module. Perhaps he saw his killer."

"Oh, yeah, bronto-brain with the logic," said Rattrap, pushing a crate beside where Dinobot was standing. "You might have noticed that he was shot in the _back_ of the head."

"He may have seen the assassin prior to the shot, or perhaps in a reflection."

Rattrap climbed up on his crate to look over the warrior's shoulder. "You're not exactly the techiest 'bot. You'll probably erase his memories by accident."

"Why do you think I waited until I had pursued all other leads before attempting this?" asked Dinobot, attaching the cable to the memory module.

"Wait, you don't know what you're -"

Dinobot was never able to get the order straight in his mind afterward. He activated the link, and there was an explosion, and Rattrap tackled him from the side, and there was burning pain, and there was a strangely muffled feeling that he hadn't experienced since the initial change.

Dinobot opened his eyes and found himself face-down on the floor. The computer was in front of him, screen cracked and leaking smoke. _Did the computer explode?_ he wondered hazily, trying to pull himself back to full awareness. _Augh, this_ hurts _..._ Agony burned down his right arm and leg. It was almost enough to eclipse the pain in his ears.

The alarm klaxons were flashing but the sound was wrong, just one high frequency monotone that drowned out everything else. There was a weight on his back that moved weakly. Dinobot pushed himself up on his hands, dislodging it. Rattrap flopped onto his back like he was made of rubber and his face twisted as if he cried out, but he made no sound. Dinobot knelt by the Maximal's side. "Rattrap?" _His injuries are not so severe ..._ His arms and legs were streaked and patched with blood - a dozen pieces of shrapnel were visible in his bare arms and the loose fabric of his trousers was tattered and bloody. _Surface wounds, limb wounds, he's been through worse and laughed._

Then Dinobot saw the blood seeping out from underneath the Maximal's shoulder and pulled him to a seated position. Rattrap didn't struggle, just slumped forward against the warrior's arm. Dinobot couldn't see the extent of the wounds on Rattrap's back. There was too much shredded fabric and blood in the way.

He took Rattrap's chin and shook his head a bit to get his attention. At least Rattrap reacted, opening his eyes part way and saying something, or trying to. "Conserve your energy," Dinobot ordered. _What do I do? I need to do_ something _!_

_Remove the shrapnel._ In the haze of panic and pain it seemed sensible. Dinobot grabbed the biggest piece, one in Rattrap's left wrist, then suddenly jerked back. _Hot! Blast it, these bodies have such poor temperature resistance ..._

Then he realised his mistake was worse than just singed fingers. He had torn the metal out of Rattrap's wrist, making the wound larger. No longer just seeping, blood flowed steadily from the Maximal. Uncertain what else to do, Dinobot clamped his hand around the wound, trying to stop the leak. _Not like this! I've said that I would kill you someday, vermin, but not like this, not in some idiot_ accident _..._

_... Not after you just saved my life._

Movement and a flash of green in the pulsing red of alarm lights and blood caught his attention, and Dinobot looked up at two of his former comrades. _Terrorsaur and Waspinator were in the cargo lift. They came when they heard the explosion - others must have as well!_ Terrorsaur was talking but Dinobot couldn't hear him - that was when he realised that his audios were damaged. The siren scream was in his head.

_Not that Terrorsaur ever says anything important._ "Get down here and hold this wound closed," Dinobot ordered. He couldn't hear his own voice but he knew he spoke because the flyers reacted. Terrorsaur baulked and Waspinator made a face and said something likely along the lines of 'we're not helping any Maximal.' " _Now_ , Terrorsaur!"

Dinobot knew he must have roared because it hurt his throat and the flyers looked terrified. Waspinator gave Terrorsaur a little push and the air warrior finally knelt, taking a few seconds to gingerly probe the edges of the wound with his long fingers before wrapping them around Rattrap's wrist. _That's slowed the leak, at least. Now I need to seal it off,_ Dinobot thought, glancing back at the makeshift table. _I have a welder up ... no, that would just cause_ more _damage. Slag!_

Waspinator said something and bolted. Terrorsaur called after her but didn't seem angry, which implied the scout was off to get help rather than simply running away.

The door opened just as she reached it. Waspinator ran right into Inferno, who threw the scout aside, knocking her to the floor. This didn't stop Waspinator from gesturing wildly, trying to explain to Megatron what happened. Megatron knew it was faster to look for himself than to try to decipher Waspinator's report and walked right past her, Inferno in tow.

Megatron made it four steps. Rhinox arrived and shoved the Predacon commander back at Inferno. Inferno's legs got tangled with Waspinator's, who was still sitting on the floor, and she went down in a pile of outrage. Megatron regained his footing and readied himself to attack. Rhinox paid him no attention. The engineer was focused on Terrorsaur, anger radiating off him in a tangible wave. Terrorsaur cringed and looked ready to bolt, about to decide he was more afraid of Rhinox than Dinobot.

"The Predacons didn't do this!" Dinobot shouted. "There was an explosion!"

The anger dissipated and Rhinox dropped to his knees beside Rattrap, patting at his face and talking. Rattrap barely responded, a flutter of the lids that didn't quite open, mouth not moving enough for speech. Rhinox tried to speak to Dinobot, indicated his wounds, but Dinobot shook his head. "Rattrap pushed me out of the way and took more of the blast. My damages are not important." Rattrap's eyes opened suddenly and his free hand caught and twisted in the fabric of Rhinox's shirt, which worried Dinobot more than the blood - he had never seen the Maximal hurt badly enough to make such a _help me, don't leave me_ gesture before.

Rhinox reacted to something Dinobot couldn't see, glancing back over his shoulder, face anguished, words painful. Hesitation, more words, and he looked back down, apology in every line of him, and gently took Rattrap's hand from his shirt. The meaning was plain this time: _I'm sorry. I have to leave but I'll come back soon. I promise._

Rhinox reluctantly left, immediately replaced by Optimus, who was shouting orders. Some of those were given to Dinobot, who couldn't understand. Now a hand on his shoulder, a searching look, a question? Dinobot growled. "I'm _fine_." Optimus' attention shifted to Terrorsaur. More words, no hesitation in him now - Terrorsaur helped Optimus carry Rattrap out. Rattrap was small enough that anyone could have carried him easily but the need to keep pressure on his wrist made it awkward.

With his view no longer blocked by Rhinox or Optimus, Dinobot could see that everyone else had arrived, drawn by the explosion. In the absence of the senior Maximals, Tigatron seemed to be the one giving orders. At her gesture, Cheetor bolted. The Predacons weren't paying her any attention. Most were in a huddle near the door, talking and glancing back at him, except Waspinator who was clinging to Silverbolt's arm and Tarantulas who was missing entirely. The alarm lights shut off.

Still kneeling, Dinobot glanced down at himself. He was soaked with blood. Most of it was Rattrap's. Ignoring the pain of his wounds, Dinobot stood up.

He had been fine when he was kneeling but it was hard to keep on his feet. It felt like the deck tilted below him though he knew it hadn't. Ignoring the warnings of his stabilisation system, Dinobot took a step forward, trying to use sight alone to keep himself balanced. It worked for three steps, then the _Axalon_ slid out sideways from under him.

Two sets of hands caught him before he fell - Megatron and Tigatron. They argued past him - Megatron calm, Tigatron suspicious. Dinobot snarled and cut them short. "I am going to the xenobiology lab. Tigatron, keep order." Tigatron nodded and turned away, returning her attention to the remaining Maximals.

Megatron shot a triumphant grin at the tracker's back, then hooked his arm under Dinobot's shoulders. Much as he hated to appear weak, Dinobot knew he couldn't walk on his own. Much as he didn't want help from Megatron, better him than the already stretched-thin Maximals. Putting his arm over his former commander's shoulders for balance, he growled, "Don't make too much of this," and felt the answering laugh.

By the time they reached the xenobiology lab, Optimus had already laid Rattrap out on one of the two tables, face-down, left arm extended above his head. Terrorsaur had vanished - Optimus was holding Rattrap's wrist. Blood seeped through his fingers, noticeable only because Dinobot was looking for it. Merely carrying Rattrap to the lab had left Optimus' arms and torso red. He was hunched forward, talking quickly, worry and reassurance - _We're going to repair you. You'll be fine. Stay with us._ Rattrap didn't react.

Rhinox appeared a moment later with Tarantulas. Tarantulas immediately went to check on Rattrap. She had no interest in his well-being but she liked blood.

Megatron led Dinobot to one of the chairs and helped him sit, mindful of his injuries. Dinobot automatically reached to pull a bit of metal out of his arm but stopped before he could complete the action. _No. It was my clumsiness that made Rattrap's injuries worse. If I attempt to treat myself, I may end up like him._

_Having metal in my body again shouldn't hurt so much!_ Every time he moved, the shrapnel cut his flesh.

He realised Optimus was trying to talk to him and shook his head. "I can't hear you," Dinobot admitted. "My audios were damaged. All I can hear is a high-frequency tone." Now that he had a minute to think, he realised that was the muffled feeling he'd recognised from the initial change - a sudden lack of sensory input.

Optimus said something to him, paused for a moment, then spoke to Megatron instead. Megatron shrugged and returned a few minutes later with a datapad, which he handed to Dinobot. Optimus spoke, spoke again, and this time words appeared on the screen.

**Optimus Primal: I've programmed Sentinel to transcribe everything said in this room to this datapad.** But it picked up everyone in the room, so there was also:

**Tarantulas: Do you want all his blood to leak out?**

**Rhinox: No!**

**Tarantulas: Then leave the shrapnel in. It's plugging the leaks.**

And, Megatron, picking at the blood on his sleeve where it transferred from Dinobot: **Don't tell me I require new clothing again.**

**He saved my life.** Dinobot stared at the words for a moment before realising they were his.

**Optimus Primal: Options?**

**Rhinox: Protein polymer. It might bond to real flesh. I'll try it.**

**Tarantulas: Don't glue your fingers to him.**

**Megatron: I would say the wounds should be cleaned as well. Sealing in bits of metal and dirt couldn't be good for them, no.**

Rhinox left. Optimus looked back down at Rattrap. **We'll need to get his clothing off to reach his damages.** The Maximal leader started to take a step, then stopped, looking down at where his hand was clamped around Rattrap's wrist. **Tarantulas, there should be a pair of metal snips in the second locker over there.**

This was the Optimus Dinobot knew - level-headed and in command. Tarantulas didn't even cast an asking glance at Megatron before moving to obey. Given a crisis, Optimus had snapped out of his weakness and grief. _He has some strength left. Good. May it last._

Tarantulas returned with the snips and carefully removed Rattrap's clothing to expose his damages. Simply tugging it off would snag on the shrapnel and make the wounds worse. There wasn't much metal in his back - the shrapnel had cut across without lodging in his flesh. His arms and legs were a different story. Most of the shrapnel was in his left limbs, a couple dozen small shards almost hidden in his flesh. The few pieces in his right were comparatively shallow ricochets. By the time Tarantulas finished removing Rattrap's clothing, she found two knives and a small laser pistol hidden on him. The gun was technically a truce violation and Optimus looked upset but Megatron laughed so hard he had a coughing fit.

Megatron gestured to Tarantulas, who handed him the snips. Dinobot glared at him. "No." Since he was mostly shielded by Rattrap, he had only been hit by a few ricochets in his right limbs. "I can wait."

His former commander gave him a wounded look that almost seemed sincere. **You don't trust me?**

"No."

Rhinox returned then, dropping an armload of equipment on the table near Rattrap's feet with what must have been an impressive crash. He turned with surprising speed and grabbed Tarantulas' upraised wrist.

**Rhinox: Don't do that.**

Tarantulas blinked at him. **Don't do what?**

**Rhinox: You were licking his blood off your fingers.** He squeezed a little tighter. **Don't do that.**

**Tarantulas: All right! All right!**

Megatron smirked at Dinobot, tapping the snips against his open palm. **Well now, it looks like everyone else is occupied. Shall I tend to your wounds or would you rather be stubborn?**

Dinobot growled but extended his leg. He expected trickery and didn't receive it - Megatron did nothing more than slit his trouser leg up to the thigh and carefully peel it back. Against his preference, Dinobot let Megatron do his repairs. He had steady hands, a knowledge of biology, and a knack for fiddly work so Dinobot could acknowledge the logic in letting him do it, but his former commander only performed acts of kindness if he thought he could get something out of them later.

Dinobot knew he should stay focused on Megatron to make sure he wasn't going to make things worse but he kept trying to see what was happening to Rattrap. He couldn't see much - the others blocked the view of the table. Purposeful movement of arms and shoulders, gestures with red-coated hands, but all that could be seen of Rattrap was his blood as it dripped to the floor. _'It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood.' Yet who would have thought the Maximal to have had so much blood in him?_

Megatron, already finished with the few shards in Dinobot's arm, kneeling now, removing shrapnel from his thigh with long-nosed pliers, tapped him on a bit of untorn flesh to get his attention, spoke, and pointed at the datapad. **Do you mark that?**

"How can I?" Dinobot snarled. "I can't hear!"

His former commander rolled his eyes and reached up to tap the scroll button on the datapad to show the last few minutes of conversation. Dinobot had been watching, not reading, so it was all new to him. Most was the clipped conversation of Optimus, Rhinox, and Tarantulas as they worked: **This section's clear. Hand me the sprayer. - Carefully, carefully. - Am I the only one who finds it weird that most of the shrapnel is in perfect little blue rectangles? - I don't want to think about that right now. - Hold the edges together so I can apply the polymer. - His skin shouldn't be this colour. - Bruised? He was cut, not hit.**

And, finally: **It will have blood, they say, blood will have blood. Yet who would have thought the Maximal to have had so much blood in him?**

**Megatron: Do you mark that?**

**Dinobot: How can I? I can't hear!**

**Megatron: I thought you were quoting to give yourself something to focus on. I was playing along.**

"Don't."

Megatron didn't reply, just gave a mild shrug and got back to work, bloody hands moving efficiently. Dinobot found himself automatically finishing the quote Megatron had started, taking care not to speak aloud: _'The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What, will these hands ne'er be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.'_

As if hearing his thought, Megatron startled - only in expression, too disciplined to let his hands slip - and threw a quick glance over his shoulder. Dinobot looked over at the work table - there was more strain in the backs of the Maximals and their movements were more controlled ... _No, not the right word. It's the control of one who knows that if he doesn't hold on as tight as he can, he's going to collapse._ Dinobot checked the datapad to see what had caught Megatron's attention.

**Rhinox: Hold still! We're trying to help you!**

**Optimus: He can't hear you. And you can stop laughing!**

**Tarantulas: Oh, don't take it so personally. I laugh at everything.**

Nothing that would have made Megatron jump. "What happened?"

**Megatron: Nothing to concern yourself with.**

_Nothing to concern myself with? He saved my life!_ Dinobot thought and realised he'd shouted when his throat hurt and the others glanced back at him.

**Megatron: Hold still, idiot.** He finished patching the last wound just below Dinobot's knee, then stood, rinsed his hands off with the sprayer, and went over to see what the others were doing. After a moment, Megatron shook his head. **Move aside, Primal. I'm not used to feeling embarrassed for Maximals.**

**Optimus Primal: What? Megatron.**

**Megatron: Keep up this slipshod work and you'll kill the rat before you repair him. Move aside.**

Optimus looked back at Dinobot, not speaking but the question was there: _Can we trust him? Should I let him do this?_

Dinobot nodded, and Optimus stepped back to let Megatron work. _No, you can't trust him, but he has skills that you lack. You mean well, Optimus, but you are already under too much strain. Rhinox can fix any machine but his knowledge of organics is limited to plants. Tarantulas knows how organics are put together only because she takes them apart for fun. Megatron's knowledge of biology is more theoretical than practical but he does take pride in delicate work._

_'Here's the smell of the blood still ...'_ Drawn by the mess, one of the _Axalon's_ small cleaner drones darted under the table and started scrubbing industriously. When it bumped into Tarantulas' foot, she gave it a kick that sent it skidding across the room. **Ow! As soon as I'm done here, I'm putting steel toes in my shoes.**

**Optimus: Sentinel, shut off the drones.**

**Megatron: Do try to stay focused, Tarantulas.**

**Tarantulas: As if I want to be distracted. This is the most fun I've had since I was metal!**

Optimus' hand clamped down on Rhinox's shoulder before a tightening in the muscles could become action. Dinobot growled. _If I could stand, he would have had to restrain_ me _. Optimus says, 'No.' I say, 'Not yet.' Tarantulas is useful for the moment ... and moments end._

_This situation is intolerable! Rattrap took the blast that was meant for me! He saved my life and I can do nothing! The only ones who_ can _do anything hate Maximals on principle if they didn't have reasons to hate the vermin personally!_ Dinobot glanced at the datapad and found no conversation, just orders. Megatron had smoothly taken over the operation. _I know your skill, Megatron. Fail and you will answer to me._

The two Maximals were doing little that Dinobot could see - cleaning wounds, handing tools, and trying to comfort Rattrap as well as they could. Most of the work was being done by the Predacons, more efficiently now that they were together and could pool their skills, _'their hands and faces were all badged with blood; so were their daggers, which unwiped we found upon their pillows. They stared, and were distracted; no man's life was to be trusted with them ...'_

Finally Optimus asked, **Is that all?**

Tarantulas picked up a scanner and fiddled with it, somehow able to still find the controls despite the blood smeared on it. **The scanner isn't detecting any metal in his body beyond the trace amounts that are supposed to be there.**

Megatron set about washing his hands. Rhinox touched the back of Rattrap's neck, one of the few undamaged places on him. **His skin feels wrong. He shouldn't be this cold. And his heartbeat is weak.**

**Tarantulas: Organics can't lose much blood before it becomes fatal. It's not like our fuel systems.**

**Rhinox: If we could set up something like a fuel transfer.**

Dinobot immediately got to his feet and would have fallen if he hadn't caught the table. "He risked his life to save mine! It's only right that I give up my blood for him!"

**Rhinox: You're missing enough of your own already!**

**Tarantulas: Blood can't be transferred like fuel. Not exactly.**

**Optimus Primal: What? Explain!**

Tarantulas shrugged. **There are different kinds of blood. Some are incompatible with others.**

**Rhinox: How do you know this?**

The scientist laughed. Sentinel didn't think it needed to transcribe it. **I've taken blood samples of everyone since the change. I had to dispose of them somehow.**

**Megatron: You mixed a drink.**

**Tarantulas: The blood went strange depending on which samples were combined. Further scans indicated what seemed to be six strains. I'm not sure. Quickstrike and Silverbolt are rather odd.**

**Optimus Primal: Who's Rattrap compatible with?** Dinobot couldn't hear his voice but his expression was enough. There was nothing Optimus could do now, the situation was entirely out of his control. When the day had started one of his crew was already dead, killed when his stasis pod exploded. This morning another had been found murdered. Now Rattrap was dying. Dinobot's fists clenched. _He saved my life._

Tarantulas chuckled again. **He has the most common type actually. It might be another trait tied in with our beast-modes, because all his compatibles used to be arthropods.**

Rhinox pushed past her and started typing at the computer, leaving bloody fingerprints on the console. Tarantulas reached past him and tapped a few keys. **My research.**

**Rattrap and I are similar,** said Rhinox after several too-long minutes.

**Tarantulas: Do you want to take the chance that you're similar enough?**

Rhinox dragged the back of his hand across his damp forehead and left a red smear. **I'm surprised you warned us at all.**

Tarantulas shrugged. **This procedure might be needed on a Predacon some day. The scientific solution is to try it on the rat first.**

Megatron, not quite hiding a smirk: **Yes, try it on the rat. Ask for volunteers to donate, Primal. See how far that gets you.**

Optimus, all vulnerability now, not in any shape to stand up to Megatron: **But.**

Tarantulas drifted over to stand a bit behind Megatron, putting herself out of Maximal reach. Megatron continued: **The only answer you'll hear is a resounding and insulted no. You Maximals have taken everything else from we Predacons and now you ask the fuel from our lines?**

It wasn't a fair complaint - the crew of the _Axalon_ had done nothing to the Predacon faction but be built Maximals - but any thought Dinobot had of threatening and ordering one of the Predacons to donate their blood died with those words. Dinobot fought against Megatron, not against the Predacons as a species, and making that kind of demand was too fundamental a betrayal. He could stand them passing in the hall and hissing 'traitor' under their breath; he couldn't take wounded glances and, 'you used to understand.'

The Predacon commander was still talking: **And for the rat? The single most troublesome member of your crew? What has he ever done to make us desire his continued existence?**

Rhinox was by the table, holding Rattrap as best he could despite the angle, as if physical contact could keep his spark in his body. He looked about to speak but changed his mind and said nothing. Dinobot couldn't decide if it was a wise move or a foolish one. _Ask, beg, or order in this and Megatron will be so offended that it will end your precious truce. On the other hand, if the truce dissolves, you may take what you need by force ..._

**But I suppose I've already put this much effort into him.** Megatron turned suddenly and strode to the door but it was only to tap the intercom. **Inferno, report to the xenobiology lab immediately.**

 

* * *

 

Rhinox hurried back to the xenobiology lab. "Has he regained consciousness yet?" he asked, then felt bad for asking.

"We would have told you if he had," said Optimus without insult. Then, quieter, "Find anything?"

"No." He wasn't meant to. Optimus didn't ask any more questions, knowing that Rhinox needed a few minutes to check on his friend.

Rhinox always forgot how small Rattrap was until he was injured. Active, Rattrap filled more space than his actual body did. This flesh-form didn't help. Without the added bulk of his beast-mode, without armour, without even clothing, Rattrap looked so small and vulnerable that Rhinox was almost afraid to touch him.

They'd cleaned up the blood, unrolled a sheet of packing foam on the table, then laid Rattrap on it on his front. There hadn't been time for delicacy - the polymer had been smeared on, leaving Rattrap with grayish stripes across his back and patches on his arms and legs. It was easy to tell where Megatron had taken over the operation - the patches were much smoother and tidier. The polymer looked like flesh but was actually more like rubber. Hopefully Rattrap's body would heal its wounds on its own, under the polymer, which could then be peeled off.

Rhinox sat on the table next to Rattrap and lightly rested his hand on his friend's shoulder. No space on his back - what wasn't covered by gray polymer was covered by reddish-purple bruises they'd found when they washed off the blood. No scanners, no sensors, just flesh-damped senses, the contact was a way of reassuring himself that Rattrap was still alive. His breathing was ragged and his heartbeat was too fast but it was strong.

Rattrap hadn't regained full consciousness since the explosion. Sometimes his eyes would open and he'd try to talk before the pain put him back into stasis. Rhinox envied Dinobot's hearing loss. Dinobot couldn't hear Rattrap's whimpering as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He didn't hear his screams when the shrapnel was removed. _I wish there was something I could do, some way to take his pain away._

Optimus had remained by Rattrap's side, determined not to lose another friend. Megatron had slipped away as soon as the transfusion was done, complaining about the blood under his nails. Inferno had seemed a bit dizzy afterwards but insisted she was fine. Tarantulas had been forced to wash her hands before she left. Dinobot hadn't left after his own wounds had been treated. When Rhinox said he could go, Dinobot merely repeated, "He saved my life." Rhinox couldn't blame Dinobot for being a bit stuck on that point. Before, such an explosion would have been an inconvenience. Now just the edge of it nearly killed Rattrap. If Dinobot had been alone ...

"I'm surprised Megatron helped us," said Rhinox quietly. "If he hadn't ..."

"It's probably as Tarantulas said - try the experiment on a Maximal first. He just wanted to see if he could do it." Optimus shook his head. "I suppose he didn't do it out of a feeling of camaraderie."

"'Make good of bad, and friends of foes.' Of course not. He wants something," Dinobot grumbled.

"Under the circumstances, I'd rather owe Megatron," said Rhinox, squeezing Rattrap's shoulder lightly. _But I only_ nearly _lost a friend today, and I have work to do ..._ With Dinobot wounded and unable to complete his investigation, Rhinox had stepped in to finish up. "There was nothing to recover, Optimus," he said after a moment. "The explosion completely destroyed Crossbolt's head. There wasn't a scrap of viable circuitry left. At the same time a surge destroyed the computer Dinobot was using to tap into his memory module."

"So it was a power surge," said Optimus hopefully.

The engineer shook his head. "It was a bomb. The pattern of damage was clear and I found fragments of the device. Crossbolt's love of etching didn't do us any favours - it just weakened his plating and made more shrapnel. The bomb didn't cause the surge though. The computer was destroyed by a virus."

"One of the flashburn viruses," said Dinobot. "I've seen them before."

Rattrap twitched suddenly, mumbled something incomprehensible, tried to get up, and screamed, clawing at the table. Rhinox got down and leaned over, patting his friend's neck and shoulders until he calmed down.

After a minute, Rattrap opened his eyes. He managed to smile faintly. "Knew you'd be here. Where's Dinobot?"

"He's fine," said Rhinox without thinking, then tapped Rattrap on the shoulder and moved aside so he could see the warrior sitting by the opposite table.

Rattrap made a face but his relief was obvious. He pushed himself up on his elbows though it was obvious that moving hurt. "Nngh. Just hate to think I risked my hide for ..." He trailed off, a kind of horrified realisation coming over his features. Rhinox pushed a datapad into his hands, the first words on the screen being, **Your audios are damaged.** When he finished reading the report, Rattrap groaned and sank back onto the table. Rhinox patted him on an undamaged bit of his shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

"How d'you _think_ I'm feelin'?" Rattrap demanded, addressing the datapad. He spoke like Dinobot did now, too harsh and too loud, unable to hear his own voice to modulate it. "Can't ... can't shut off my pain receptors. Gotta feel everything. An' why's it so cold in here?"

Rhinox pulled off his shirt and draped it over Rattrap. There were bloodstains on it - he hadn't had a chance to change his clothes - but he doubted Rattrap would mind. Rattrap tried to turn on his side to curl up, winced, and settled onto his front again, shrugging the fabric up over his shoulders. There was a snort from Dinobot. "Only _you_ would squeak of pain when you are lucky to be alive, mouse," he said, glancing up from his datapad.

Rattrap turned his head to glare. "Ain't _me_ that's lucky, scalebelly. If I hadn't been there, you'd be perforated Pred!"

Dinobot looked away and curled into himself so slightly that Rhinox only saw it because he knew it was there, a physical manifestation of the words he'd said a dozen times before: _I know. You saved my life._

Awkward silence, the argument cut short by honesty. Optimus rescued them both by breaking it: "How did you know to act, Rattrap?"

Rattrap shrugged awkwardly, then winced at the movement. "Spent a lotta time in demolitions. I hear a special little click, I hit the deck." He sighed. "Last thing I ever heard. Great."

"Your hearing loss might be temporary," Rhinox reminded him, settling back on the table by Rattrap's head and putting his hand back on his shoulder. "Your body may heal on its own."

"Might not," grumbled Rattrap. "I gotta hear this siren for the rest of my life, too?"

"We don't know yet."

Rattrap shook his head. "Great. So that's two of us down for a while. You just know Megs and them are gonna try to find a way to take advantage."

"Even with both of you out, they don't have the advantage of numbers," said Optimus.

"Quickstrike and Silverbolt are not ready." Dinobot glanced over at the engineer. "Though perhaps it doesn't matter. I think the Predacons have a renewed respect for Rhinox. Not many people can get away with shoving Megatron."

Rhinox felt his cheeks go hot. "The cargo bay was full of Predacons, you were both covered in blood, and Terrorsaur was crouched over Rattrap. What was I _supposed_ to think?"

"You thought _Terrorsaur_ got the best of me?" Rattrap heckled. "I'm insulted!" Rhinox relaxed his grip on Rattrap's shoulder. If he was cracking jokes, he was going to be fine.

Optimus seemed to think so as well. "Are you up to discussing Dinobot's investigation?"

"Yeah, why not?" Rattrap asked. "Give me somethin' to think about other than how much everything hurts."

"All right," said Optimus. "Dinobot?"

"The shot was at a downward angle. The killer was either tall, hovering, or, most likely, lying in the crawlspace. Rhinox could not have been the killer," said Dinobot, nodding to the engineer. "He would have been too large to fit in the crawlspace. As well, I have him on camera in the engineering section at the time of the murder. As for Cheetor, there were too many people walking in and out of the control room for him to have left without being noticed. However, he was in the perfect place to tamper with the security system."

"He did _not_ ," snapped Rhinox.

"I didn't say he _did_. It _is_ a possibility. I found Crossbolt's things hidden in the wall between Crossbolt's and Cheetor's quarters," Dinobot snarled back. "You, vermin, claim to have alibis, none of which I can check. This includes the alibi of distance, if you didn't sneak up to the _Axalon_ and only reveal yourself later, after you had been summoned." Rattrap made a face at him. "Optimus, I cannot place at the time of death. He appears in no security footage."

"I was out in the hangar organising the loaders," said Optimus.

"No one here can vouch for that."

Rhinox glared at the warrior. "I can't believe you suspect Optimus. Or any of us!"

"'To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy.' I suspect _everyone_. _You_ certainly have the skill to bypass the security system, Rhinox. It was not necessarily anyone in the crew. There were the workers. Someone else may have slipped aboard. I do not have enough information to give you any answers!" Dinobot finished, punching his chair's armrest.

"All right," said Rhinox quietly, though the tone of voice would be lost on Dinobot. "We're all frustrated and on edge here. It's been a hard day."

"I should have realised Crossbolt was equipped with an explosive device," said Dinobot, angry but the anger directed inward. "Especially considering the other traps in his body. I have ... encountered such things before, though never in a civilian."

"Could it have been added after? By his killer as a way of causing more damage?" asked Optimus. "Wait ... Other traps?"

"Your friend was very well-armed." Dinobot shook his head. "If the assassin wanted Crossbolt's memory module destroyed, he could have shot it easily enough. There is no reason to have taken the time to install a bomb that does so little damage. Relatively speaking." He paused, then, "It was _not_ one of the Predacons, before anyone accuses them."

"You left Terrorsaur alone with the body!" Rattrap accused.

"He has the skill to rig a bomb. He does _not_ have the skill to implant a virus," said Dinobot.

"But it's fine to accuse _us_ ," grumbled Rhinox to himself.

It wasn't meant to be heard but he realised Sentinel picked it up and transcribed it anyway when Dinobot growled. "I _know_ what Terrorsaur is and is not capable of. I do not know you Maximals nearly so well."

"Crossbolt was an information trader as well as cargo," said Optimus. "Maybe he had the traps installed as a precaution."

"I've only ever heard of 'em in spies," said Rattrap quietly, or what should have been quiet if he could hear.

"He wasn't a spy," said Optimus firmly. "I've got the rank to know."

"You wouldn't. 'Cause that's what a spy _is_."

Optimus shot him a look of wounded anger, then left without a word. Dinobot stood up after a moment, muttering something about returning to his quarters, though Rhinox didn't know if it was directed at him or if Dinobot was thinking out loud again. The warrior gave Rattrap an unreadable look, then left, carefully holding onto the wall for balance.

Alone, Rhinox frowned at Rattrap. "That was vicious."

"Well, he _wouldn't_ know," Rattrap mumbled, looking upset.

Rattrap hadn't meant it unkindly, he'd just been tactless. Rhinox reached down and squeezed his friend's hand. "You saved Dinobot's life and you're still alive. I'd say you did good."

Rattrap squeezed back, hard. "Just ... just doin' my job."

"You're going to be fine," Rhinox insisted. "You want me to get you anything?"

"We still got crocodile around?"

"We're going to have crocodile around for _days_."

 

* * *

 

Head pillowed on his right arm, Rattrap stretched out his left and wiggled his fingers, watching them through half-closed eyes. _So I got Predacon fuel runnin' through my lines now. Ain't the first time._ Getting put back together by a Predacon, that was new and unnerving. Especially Megatron - Rattrap had no illusions what the Predacon commander thought of him. He tried curling up to get more comfortable and to tuck Rhinox's shirt around himself better but moving pulled on his wounds. He was pretty sure the protein polymer wouldn't pull off, it just hurt too much to move. He'd just have to put up with his legs being cold for a while.

Rattrap managed to prop himself up on his elbows when the door opened. _Rhinox back already? No._ Too big, too dark. Megatron. _How long's he been hangin' around waitin' for me to be awake and alone? Better question - why? Best question - where's my gun?_

Smiling, the Predacon handed him a datapad. On the screen was typed: **Did they tell you that I saved your life?**

_Oh, good, he's just here for a gloat._ Apparently Megatron didn't want to leave a record of this little conversation, choosing to write it out instead of letting Sentinel transcribe him. Rattrap decided to play along and typed on the next line: **It might have been mentioned in passing.**

Megatron smirked at that. **This is simply a friendly warning - one day I will ask that the debt be repaid.**

Rattrap grinned back and typed: **Yeah, good luck with that. Get in line.**

He stopped grinning when he read Megatron's response. **If you don't repay me, Dinobot will.**

**Dream on.**

**You were hurt badly while saving his life, then he accidentally made things worse trying to tend your wounds. He feels deeply indebted to you and will continue to do so until he finds a way to reciprocate. He could do this by fulfilling your debt to me.**

Rattrap read the paragraph over three times. _Oh, cheese, no. Dinobot and his stupid honour. He_ would _follow through with it, the big idiot._ Rattrap typed: **What are you after?**

The Predacon didn't answer, merely took the datapad from Rattrap's hands, smiled, and left.

Rattrap settled himself as comfortably as he could on the table. _He'll spring it on me when the time's right. Of course. Classic Megatron._

_All I gotta do is get Dinobot out of my debt, then I can tell Megatron to cram it._

 

_To be continued ..._

 


End file.
